Close Encounters 24
by chezchuckles
Summary: CE 24: Moonraker. Spy Castle and Beckett recover after the life-threatening events of Nobody Lives For Ever, eager to finally get home.
1. Chapter 1

**Close Encounters 24: Moonraker**

* * *

><p><em>Previously on <strong>CE 23<strong>:_

_Kate struggled to stand with the help of the railing, and then she took a slow step across the cool marble floor of the lobby, heading for the garden doors. The air was warmer, though the light bulbs were out here too. She could see well enough from the garden lampposts and the lantern lights that shimmered in the rain; they cast a moon-like path towards the door._

_She opened it quietly, but it wasn't covert enough._

_A hand wrapped around her mouth, an arm around her waist, and she was jerked out into the night._

* * *

><p>Castle hustled straight through the lobby and jerked open the back door to the gardens. The text on his phone burned in his hand, and he had his gun poised and ready in the other, but he didn't see her.<p>

Not at first.

And then through the rain he made out the shape of the little bench and its small gazebo, the wet trees and plants nodding their heads against the patter of drops. And there was Kate huddled on the bench, Hunt standing over her.

"What the _hell_?" he shouted, racing towards them in the rain.

Kate sat up like a shot and held out her hands. "I'm okay, I'm okay. I'm fine, Castle, I'm fine."

That didn't stop him. It was cute how Hunt stepped in front of her as if to _shield_ her from him, but Castle knocked Hunt aside and took up that position of defense himself, breathing hard just from the fear pounding in his blood.

Kate clutched the back of his sweatshirt and _stood up_.

Hunt was standing in the rain now. Drenched. Castle reached back to grip his wife. "Kate," he hissed. "Get in the house."

"Like fucking hell," she scraped out. "Stand down. Hunt brought the vials."

Hunt was holding a hand to his jaw where Castle's flat-palmed gun had broadsided him, and it was bleeding and swelling up in the rain. He looked like a drowned rat. "Damn it, Castle. This is why I don't meet with you."

Kate tugged on his sweatshirt. "We owe him, Rick. Put your gun down. I have what we need."

Castle gave a fast look back to her and saw the metal case on the bench. She was standing at his back looking regal, and pissed off, but _he_ was pissed too.

"What are you doing down here in the rain?"

"Your damn job," she muttered, slapping his shoulder. "Now ease up, Castle. He's on our side, but he won't be for long if you keep attacking him. Treating him like shit."

The true parts of that statement hit him like ice, _your damn job,_ but she saw the disgust on his face and misinterpreted its focus, narrowing her eyes at him.

Her fingers came around his elbow, nails digging into his skin. "Rick Castle, he is not the one you want to shoot."

He swallowed hard and released the death grip on his weapon, managed to stand down after another rain-spattered moment. "You're soaked to the skin, Kate."

"Not as bad as all that. Hunt carried me under here."

Castle's eye twitched and Kate stroked her fingers at his neck, softening him. Or trying to anyway. He didn't much like the idea of Hunt carrying her anywhere, but she was standing; she looked unhurt.

"My hair's wet, that's all," she murmured. Her mouth glanced against his. "I just want you, Castle. And you know it. So ease up, sweetheart. He did what you asked him to do."

The vials from the courier. Mitchell had been followed when he'd gone to meet up with the man from New York, and so he'd had to bail before contact. Black's spies, or the Collective's - hard to know which. They'd enlisted Hunt's help - reluctantly - but it seemed Colin Hunt had done what he'd promised.

Castle turned back around to study the man. "Did anyone follow you?"

Hunt shook his head. "I had someone on me for half my trip to Cologne, but I managed to ditch them. I made it look like I was heading to Italy and then I doubled-back for you guys. The courier was spooked though; he didn't like meeting me. Code phrase didn't seem to help much. He was expecting Mitchell."

"They're trained to be cautious," Castle said. He was both grateful and concerned at the same time; someone was on their trail, but whether it was Collective or just Black wanting more information, they couldn't be sure.

Kate nudged his shoulder, leaned into him. Her jacket was wet where it touched his skin, but she didn't feel too cold. It was a light spring rain, at least. She nudged him again, not-so-subtly prompting.

"Thank you," he gruffed. "For picking it up for us. Beckett needs it."

"I know," Hunt said, eyes quiet. Usually Hunt was angling for the best deal, best contact, best set-up, but in this moment, Castle could actually trust the honesty of his concern. For Castle's wife. But it was still concern.

"We're done now," Castle told him. "You go your way; we go ours."

"Thank God," he said wryly, smirking at them even in the dark, rainy green.

Castle could see the way the man kept glancing towards Kate. He shifted to step into Hunt's line of sight. "I'm gonna suggest you stay away from Black from here on out, but that's your own deal. If we run across you again in his company, don't think this makes me beholden."

"But it does make me," Kate interrupted, pushing past him and stepping up to Hunt. "Colin, I _am_ beholden. You did this for us, and you didn't have to. But Castle is right. You need to not be in Black's company the next time we meet."

Hunt grimaced. "I go where the contract takes me."

"You should not," Castle said, not liking Kate up close to the man. "If you're with him, it means I can't trust you."

"You wouldn't trust me anyway," Hunt laughed. He stepped back, nearly one with the shadows. "You take your meds, Kate. Until tomorrow."

Kate let out a soft little breath and her shoulders slumped. She was disappointed in Hunt, he knew, but Castle wasn't surprised. Wouldn't be Hunt if he promised to stay safe or stay out of it.

And Castle knew she _liked_ that in her men.

He didn't holster his weapon.

Kate turned around and stepped into him, drew her arms around his waist and pressed her damp cheek to his neck. She was short, in nothing more than flat, muddy shoes, and she was shaking.

"Kate-"

"Grab the case. I'll take an infusion tonight and then tomorrow - we start our plan to get out of here."

"Kate," he sighed. But he shifted out of her arms and reached for the case with those precious vials, the meaning not at all lost on him that the silver case was exactly the same as the ones the serum came in. "You're barely standing up."

"I want to go home," she told him. "With you. Home to our son. Promise me that."

"Anything," he said roughly, drawing her against his side. "I _will _get you home."

"Soon."

He closed his eyes a moment, but he said it anyway. "Soon, Kate." He knew it was a foolhardy promise, giving her the world when she kept making these untenable decisions - like running downstairs in the dark and the rain to meet Hunt.

But he'd still do it. She was worth it.

"I can walk," she insisted. And as she stepped out from under the shelter of the little wooden gazebo, he saw she was right.

She was walking.

But for how long?

* * *

><p>When she swayed on the stairs, Castle immediately had his hands on her shoulders, pushing her to sit down. She sank to the step and leaned over on her knees, breathing hard, while Castle crouched in front of her.<p>

"Kate, honey." His hands stroked her hair from her face and behind her ears.

She let out a shaky breath and lifted her head to him. "I'm okay. Tired. Just really tired."

"You need this stuff," he said. The case was between their knees, knocking into her shins. "Soon as we can."

"Yeah," she confessed. "I really do." She tried to give him a smile; she had felt markedly alive in the dark and the rain, the night air in her lungs and the illicit meeting, Castle storming across the garden for her. It had buoyed her those last few minutes.

But now she was wiped out. An exhaustion that dragged at her.

"We had to take the port out," he murmured. "Otherwise I'd do it right here on the stairs."

She chuckled and leaned in against him, her cheek to his shoulder, catching her breath, slowing her too-frantic heart. Castle cupped the back of her head and stroked his thumb behind her ear, for once not so abjectly worried. Seemingly. He was taking this in stride, she thought.

"Maybe I should," he whispered. "Here on the stairs? Or at least not in the room where Black can see."

"Maybe."

"Kate? Am I making this decision on my own?"

She roused, hand touching the side of his neck, lifting from his shoulder. "No, I'm - I'm here. Let me think. We need someplace solitary to do this."

"Yeah. When we did this before, he was still locked up. So we didn't have to worry about him finding out we had it."

She nodded, tried to clear the exhaustion out of her head. "Okay. The bathroom?"

"It's small. And he'd wonder, right?"

"Wonder..."

"Why we barricaded him out of the bathroom," Castle laughed softly. "But we could still do it there. If you can live with the comments we're sure to get."

"I think so," she murmured. "But don't take my word for it, Castle. Too tired to think it through."

"Yeah, love, I understand." His fingers stroked the back of her neck. "Can you stand up?"

She pushed her tongue against her teeth, closed her eyes. "In a second."

"Or," he said. His voice was so quiet. "I could carry you."

"Okay," she said, drew her arms around his neck. It'd be nice, after the way Hunt had grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her up over his shoulder like a caveman. Be so much better, Castle's gentleness, a place to rest. "Okay, good."

"Okay?" he murmured. "Okay. I'll do that. You ready?"

"Mm-hm."

Castle was right there, the silver case pushed into her lap just like she'd carried the gun that night of the fire alarm. Castle was faster this time, feet barely touching the steps as he moved up to the fifth floor. He stopped on the last landing, caught her lips in a kiss that surprised her.

She pulled back just enough to look at him and he was smiling. "What's that for?"

"Kate Appreciation Day, isn't it?"

"What?"

"Hunt seemed to think so."

She laughed, but there was a tension under his words that she needed to address, tired or not. "Hunt is an ass," she said. "But you, Rick Castle, don't need me to say that."

The corner of his mouth twisted up and he moved down the so-dark hall, heading for the apartment. She was a whole lot more with it suddenly, aware in a way she definitely hadn't been outside, even in the rain with the stars and Hunt lowering her to that bench.

It was dark in here. Dark and close and she could hear Castle breathing, feel him against her side and belly and arm. Her awareness of him was vivid, as if compensating for the darkness in the hall. Castle was a burning, blazing image against her senses.

"Castle," she murmured. "Love."

"Yeah?"

She tightened her arms around him, curling in a little - just enough to set him off balance. "Love. Verb and noun and all." She nipped at his jaw.

Castle grunted and squeezed her ass. "I'm walking here."

"Distracting you?"

"Hmm."

"In a good way, right? A Kate Appreciation way?"

"Honey," he drawled, and even though she couldn't see him at all, she _did _see his eyes. The spark of trapped light. "Every day you're alive is an appreciation day."

She sighed and nudged her nose against his, softly kissed his mouth and those dry but definitive words.

"Then set me up in the bathroom with the IV. We need to knock this out."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then we can work on some real appreciation."

He did laugh then, a puff of breath against her cheek, but his arms tightened around her, hard, fierce, and she was going to do everything in her power to live up to that declaration.

* * *

><p>Castle had her bedded down in the bathtub, blankets piled around and under her while the infusion from their far-off Echo diffused through the saline and made its way through the IV line and into her blood. Her shirt was rucked up at her stomach, jeans pulled off and dropped to the bathroom floor, and he could see the pale of her skin where that old tattoo was still crisp. But the rest of her was unmarked, unmarred, smooth as milk and without a single blemish.<p>

Scars had gone. Stretch marks gone. Freckles that had dusted her hip on the left - gone.

Just from four days of treatments. Castle slipped his fingers around and around the profile of the Russian bear, the dark stylized grief and anger inherent in its imprint. She'd gotten that tattoo after her mother had died, when the dark hole of that death had scarred everything. The first time he'd seen it, she'd had two black eyes and they'd just defeated a Chinese spy - the bear and its Russian words had seemed only right. _Full of strength._

That was Beckett; that was his wife. Even now.

Kate curled her fingers around his wrist but couldn't seem to keep her eyes open. He waited, but she was losing her fight. She was asleep before he even stood up.

He face the bathroom mirror with a dark look, reached down to strip the wet shirt off over his head.

But Kate's body stayed in his mind, a haunting dark relief. The place where her tattoo was, the pale of her skin, the marks of her whole life there on her body. And what marks did he have? Putting himself back on the regimen was already removing his scars, the trail of their years together.

The place at his thumb where he'd burned the webbing trying to heat up baby bottles in the warmer - doing it wrong, of course - had faded to nothing. He'd picked up a shard of ceramic in his foot on the back patio after the dog had gotten frightened by a thunderstorm and crashed through the potted garden plants - but that was gone too.

As he turned his torso in the mirror, he saw that the white meaty scar where the knife had gone into his back was nothing more than a thin, faint silver - that mark of honor, where he had protected her from Coonan, and it was going too.

But he had affected her, she had affected him. The marks they left on each other were more than scars, thank goodness.

He just - he didn't want the regimen to erase them. He wanted something permanent, something to remind him of what this felt like, looking at death in the face. Something that couldn't be so easily written over. He'd given her his own stories, letters in a notebook, but she had torn them out and used them against him, twisted their purpose.

He needed more than a scar that faded. He needed a blatant, blazing reminder of the extremes to which they'd go for each other, the very dark edges of what they did for each other - just how close Death had come, how close they had willed it just to give each other the world.

Because it had made them equal. Death had given him knowledge of her and of himself, too, how limitless his need for her, how stark. The details had burned out until it was only her.

And he couldn't forget it; he was determined not to forget this. How vital. How absolutely vital they were to each other. Nothing else mattered.

What good was being super if it didn't save Kate?

She'd broken her toe when James was six weeks old, and Castle had sworn he'd take care of it, but he'd forgotten somehow. The universe had tried to warn him, but he'd forgotten, and he could _never_ do that again.

Castle knew from experience, from forty years of being the machine, that perfection was cold and lifeless, that leaving no trace behind meant that he mattered to no one. No marks, no scars meant no one else had those corresponding marks and scars. There was no life lived together without them, and now Castle wanted to be fucking marked.

Forever.

* * *

><p><em>"What the hell are you doing<em>?"

Kate jerked awake, thrashing in a bath of blankets and duvet, pillows smothering her, and she heard it again, the hiss of words outside the room.

The _bathroom_. She was in the bathtub with the IV bag hanging from the showerhead just above her. Black was out there, and so was Castle apparently, and they were yelling at each other.

Black sounded violently angry, more than just Castle sitting outside the bathroom door and blocking his way.

"I don't know," she heard, and that was Castle's voice, sounding thin.

She tried to shift onto her side, get up, out of the tub, but she slid against the blankets, felt her cheek knocking into the porcelain side.

Ouch.

"Are you looking to _bleed to death_?"

Bleed to death?

"No," Castle growled. "Get the fuck out of my face."

There was a strange silence, and Kate moved to get out of the tub, checking the IV bag where it swayed over her head. She was done, the saline was out; she needed to crawl out of the tub and throw this stuff away. Black couldn't see they'd been dosing her on the side.

"Is Katherine in there?" Black said, suspicion trickling through his voice.

"She's in the bathroom. Fuck, give her a minute," Castle stressed.

That was to her; she had a minute or so to get this shit cleared up. She was shaky, but she wasn't nearly as exhausted as she'd been earlier tonight. What time was it? It could be morning, but it had sounded like Castle had been caught in the act, doing something, so he hadn't been asleep out there.

And he wouldn't have let the IV just run, leave her asleep in here when they were in a time crunch, trying to avoid his father.

"What's going on?" Black said. "What's with the knife and moping outside the door, Richard?"

The knife?

Kate's heart picked up and she fumbled with the IV; it was just a line this time, not the port because she wasn't supposed to be needing it now that the chelation was over. And she hadn't wanted to give Black such ease of access to her veins.

Veins. _Looking to bleed to death_. And a knife? What had Castle been doing?

She finally got the line out of her vein and the blood welled up, a bubble in the crook of her arm. She had to press a strip of gauze over it even as she dug her elbows into the side of the tub, getting her knees under her.

"Stop looking at me like that. I wasn't opening my veins," Castle grunted. He had to be standing up now; his voice came from a higher place.

"Well, from where I'm standing, you're doing a pretty good job of carving yourself up."

"Just testing," Castle growled.

Testing? Fuck. Fuck, he was testing to see how resilient he was now? How super? God, he couldn't do shit like that, not when one half of his team was already down for the count, a major weakness.

"Testing. What? You know what the program can do for you. It's right in front of your eyes. See? Barely a line."

Castle had been doing what-? Sliding a knife up his arm? Fucking hell, Kate couldn't get to her damn feet with all these blankets. She kicked one free of her leg and tossed it over the side, then another, then the duvet and pillows - at least it would be a softer place to land.

"Barely a line. Nothing ever leaves a mark. I know."

"A mark? You better be damn grateful for that, you idiot. It's the only thing that's kept you alive, the damn foolhardy mistakes you've made. Fatal wounds, all of them, only _I_ was there to bring you back from the dead."

"Regular Frankenstein's monster."

No. Damn it. This wasn't the time to be stuck in a fucking bathtub. She could cry; it was so ridiculous. But she didn't seem to have the strength in her arms to pull herself over the edge.

"I tried to tell you," came Black's insidious voice. "I tried to make you listen to reason. But you keep getting all tangled up in your _heart_. Like your feelings matter in this job."

"It's more than a job," Castle snapped.

"It's a legacy. And what legacy are you leaving? What does this say - mistake after mistake, death and destruction wherever you go? I'm always having to clean up your mess, Richard, like you're a damn child."

Kate blocked out the snarl of Black's voice and managed to get a knee into the side of the tub. She reached out and grabbed the short chest of drawers between the tub and the sink; it held towels and cotton balls and stuff she was knocking over just to get out. The toilet itself was in a closet just next door, and that was too damn bad - she could have used a solid porcelain object to act as an anchor.

As it was, the bureau was rocking as she tried to help herself out.

"_I just want something that stays_."

"You're a God damn spy, Richard. Act like it."

Kate fell over the side, slamming her shoulder hard into the floor, and she grunted, rolled to her back on top of pillows and bedding. She caught a long breath, stared up at the ceiling, hating the whole damn world.

"You might want to get in there. Sounds like she's fallen."

There was that moment of indecisive hesitation, and Kate closed her eyes, wondering just how broken her husband was going to be when he came in here and found her on the floor with Black's cold words ringing in his ears.

"She's fine, I'm sure. She'd have called for me."

Kate opened her eyes, felt her lips pulling up into a smile. She had to get up now - she definitely had to get up - but that answer of his was so much better than she'd been afraid it would be.

If Black was standing right there, then Castle couldn't open the door and show him what they were doing. So it was up to her to cover their asses, to do her damn job, just as Castle was doing even if he didn't want to - even if he wanted so very badly to rip open the door and be right at her side.

He was being a spy when it mattered. He was both man and machine, and she was so damn grateful for it.

The spy would move heaven and earth to save her, but it was because the _man_ loved her.

For that alone, that reason alone, she rolled to her feet and stood up, bleeding from the crook of her arm, a little light-headed, and she began to get rid of all traces of the last few hours' IV infusion.

When it was done, she opened the bathroom door, still in only a t-shirt and underwear, and asked Castle to help her pull on her jeans.

Black was standing just past the door; he gave her a long look and then turned for the kitchen. Castle came to her, and Kate surged to her toes and wrapped her arms around him, embracing him fiercely just inside the bathroom door.

"Don't listen to him. Don't let him mess with your head. I love you."

"I love you too, Kate." But he didn't let go; he just pushed her into the bathroom and shut the door on them both, sealing out his father. "That's the whole point. I love you."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Thank you for coming with me on our next spy adventure! I have *so* loved this crazy AU, and I appreciate all of you for loving it too. May you have a blessed new year, and the best of dreams in 2015.


	2. Chapter 2

**Close Encounters 24**

**A/N**: Triggers ahead for cutting; first scene only.

* * *

><p>Castle leaned against the bathroom door.<p>

Kate took the knife from his hands and laid it on the sink while he bent down and helped her get into her jeans. Then he bandaged the crook of her elbow where she'd yanked out the IV, and watched as she pulled her sweatshirt on to hide it. He wasn't talking, but it wasn't because of her.

He was just - churned up inside.

Kate picked up the knife from the counter and balanced it across her fingertips. He flinched as she rubbed the flat of the blade.

She lifted an eyebrow as if in challenge. "You cut yourself. There's blood."

Castle frowned, but she was already turning back to the little storage drawers and pulled out wipes - some kind of make-up remover, he thought. Kate cleaned the blade and then came back to him, cradling the knife by the hilt, and she reached out with her free hand to touch his abs.

He flinched again, and shivers of sensation raced up his chest.

Kate lifted her head to him, studying him. "Why did you cut yourself?"

"Just to see," he croaked.

There was no judgment on her face. His shoulders eased and she hooked her fingers in the top of his pants, came in so close that he could feel the heat of her body radiating out to his.

The heat of her. She was _warm_. Alive and warm, and standing up before him with such clear strength. He wasn't sure how long it would last, but he reveled in it.

Kate spread her palm flat against his abs, but her other hand lowered to his thigh, the knife blade drawing flat along his pants. The heat burned and licked through him and he bowed his head towards her, brought his hands up to frame her waist.

"Just to see," she repeated.

"If it would leave a mark. It didn't. Nothing stays. See?"

He twisted his forearm and showed her - nothing. There was no scar, no blood but for the dried stuff he'd smeared with the knife. No wound; it had already closed up.

Kate still had the blade at his thigh, but she moved her free hand to his forearm and circled it. "I heard you with him. Fighting."

"He - makes me want to-" Castle shook his head, brows furrowing. "Took all I had in me not to stab him in the throat with that knife."

Kate moved in even closer, her head tilting down to look. She sheathed the knife in its harness around his thigh. Her fingers trailed up and to his hip, under his shirt so that his skin was on fire with her.

"Kate," he growled.

"You're not a monster," she said. "I wish you could see it as a gift, the way your body heals, how strong it is-"

"It's a curse," he said bleakly.

"It's the thing that makes you strong enough to save us. The Chinese spy, Coonan, Maddox, my mother's case - there were some pretty nasty fights you got roped into while I was in rehab at Stone Farm. The freezer in Paris, the fire in Copenhagen, abducted on the boat-"

"God," he groaned, tilting his head back. "He's right. Death and destruct-"

"He is _not_ right. We did our best to save lives, to make the world a place where we'd _want _to raise our son - and sometimes that meant getting backed into a corner - but we are _still _here. And, Castle - I'd never have survived Russia if you hadn't come for me. And you couldn't have done that without-"

"The regimen," he said. He leaned back against the door, breathing through the thick feeling in his chest.

"No, baby," she said softly. "You. Not the regimen, not him, but you. None of this would have happened, my life would have been _over_, without you. My fierce, amazing man. Spy and husband."

He let out a long breath, cupped his hands at her shoulders to drag her into him. She laid against his chest, arms hugging him tightly.

"You're good at this," he muttered, blinking fast as he stared up at the bathroom lights.

"Only because it's true." He grunted a response and she snaked her arm around his neck, pressed a kiss at his jugular. "No more cutting."

Castle startled, hearing it like _that_, like a thing, cutting. "No, I-"

She waited, hand cradling the back of his neck and he had to think about it.

"It wasn't to hurt me," he said finally. "I can't - it was just to see if it still held, if the regimen still made me - so untouchable."

"You needed to cut yourself to prove that?"

His jaw worked, his pulse thumping hard in his neck where her lips rested; he could feel her kiss on him. "I needed - I just need to _not_ be untouchable. I don't want that. If I can't fucking keep it in mind, what real life is, Kate, what really matters to me - how do I know I won't lose it?"

She pushed back from his chest and he sighed and looked in her eyes. She stroked his collarbone and shook her head. "I don't know exactly what that means, Rick. I don't follow. How does being untouchable, unscarred - how does that mean you'll lose us?"

He tilted his head down, tried to make it straight in his own head. He didn't want her to think he was really attempting to do _harm_. It didn't hurt him - well, fuck, yeah, it hurt - but it wouldn't last.

"I just want something to last. A reminder of what we've done here. What the damn consequences are for not paying attention, for being complacent. I don't want to forget, Kate. I don't want to forget this time. The scars just - disappear. There's got to be a fucking way for it to leave a damn _mark. _Otherwise I'm just the machine."

She frowned fiercely at him, smacked the flat of her hand against his pec - so hard it actually stung. He flinched and caught her wrist, but she was already opening her mouth.

"You damn _man_. Get a tattoo, Castle. If you need a fucking badge of honor, then get a tattoo. I - for one - am glad the scars have faded."

* * *

><p>After Kate stalked out of the bathroom, he stood there for a minute alone, breathing through a mixture of arousal and anger - a damn tattoo? - and hoping she was cooling off as well.<p>

At least she was alive. His frustration with one of _the_ most stubborn women to ever walk the planet was relative when that woman might not have survived the last few days if she hadn't been. Stubborn refusal to die might have been the only thing keeping her with him some days.

A damn tattoo. He-

Oh.

A tattoo.

Well, that would leave a fucking mark, wouldn't it? And whatever scraps and pieces of regimen Kate had swirling in her system now hadn't affected the ink on her skin. He was reasonably certain a tattoo wouldn't fade since hers hadn't.

Huh. Tattoo parlors in Cologne. And a design. Other than just outright carving into his skin, _Don't fucking screw this up again._

Inking into his chest, _This is worth it, you asshole_.

A tattoo was a permanent way to write her protection into his skin, to gouge it as deeply as possible, to find a way to fix it to his heart so that he'd never forget, he'd remember this moment, this week, and he'd watch, he would be at attention to safeguard his family. So that he would always be enough - super, augmented, _aware _- always be able to step into the breach so that he could prevent this from ever - ever - happening again.

When he yanked open the bathroom door, Kate was nowhere to be found but his father was standing in the kitchen, a mug of coffee to his lips, his eyes on the balcony. Castle followed his line of sight and saw her out there, arms wrapped around her body, vibrating with what he knew - undoubtedly - would be anger.

And it wasn't that cold out there, not with spring touching the city and the cloud cover in Old Town; Castle could feel the humid breeze coming through the half-open door. So he let her stay, not bothering her, and he sank down at the kitchen counter and the laptop Mitch had left with them.

He made sure his body blocked Kate from Black's sight, and he opened up the computer and logged in, keeping an eye on his father. Tattoo places in Cologne, ink quality and types to be wary of, designs. Designs. What he wanted to say, have said, branded on his body. His chest. In his mind's eye, he wanted to step into the bathroom at home and have it dark and vicious across his skin. Permanent.

But he also - he couldn't have it visible to security cameras, have it showing up on photos from an operation in Minsk. He had to be smart about it - _leave no mark_ - but he was definitely getting a tattoo.

"What are you doing?"

Castle lifted his eyes and found his father right at his elbow, a scowl deepening his features.

"Fuck off," he said.

"You've lost it," Black snarled, reaching out to slam the laptop shut - directly on Castle's hands.

It stung - it did, he wasn't going to lie - but it wasn't awful. Wasn't like his fingers were broken, not even close. But it was the sting of his _father_, the sting of John Black rapping his knuckles that propelled him off the stool.

As far as a son's rebellion went, it was only a handful of the man's shirt and a fierce shove backwards, but Black was falling hard into the side of the kitchen counter, coffee sloshing over his chest.

Castle, barely breathing hard, sat back down on the stool and opened the laptop once more.

"You have truly lost your mind," his father said. "I hadn't - I had thought we could come to a rational, mutually agreeable truce, but I find you _cutting_ into your own skin, and now this?"

"It's just a tattoo," he said wearily. Why the hell was he even explaining? Why was he talking to this man? Nothing he said could make a difference. It was the same shit every time.

"Just a tattoo. Have you forgotten every rule I drummed into you?"

"Drummed? Nice choice of words. Try _beat_. Try _battered_."

"Don't be a pussy."

Castle was on his feet again in a breath, but he stayed himself, tilting forward on his toes because he wanted so badly to punch Black in the face, _prove_ something. But no. There was nothing to prove. "Fuck. Off." It was more a sigh than a threat.

Black chopped his hand toward the laptop and slammed the lid shut again. "No more of this. It's done. You've had a bad turn, I understand. She's fucked you up pretty badly, Richard, and you'll have her. I get it. You'll have her. But don't _ruin your life_ over-"

"Ruin my _life_?" he shouted. "She's the best thing that ever happened to me."

"She's the destruction of everything. And you know it."

"You don't know _sh_-"

"A steady decline, from the moment you met her. I should never have assigned you to the Chinese spy. I should have dropped you back in Hong Kong to go after the Korean assassin. It was too far above your head, above your skill set, but I was arrogant. I thought my son could overcome anything, even deficiencies in training. You should never have been there."

"Well, thank _God_, you made a mistake," Castle gruffed. And damn, but he _was_ grateful. Grateful, in this one instance, for his father's God complex. And it wasn't John Black he was grateful to. No, whatever power had put him in Kate Beckett's path, and that power wasn't his father.

He turned his head and glanced to the balcony. She was out there, softened, he thought, breathing fresh air and cleansed after their fight in the bathroom. But she'd heard every word of this one, bet on it.

He looked back at his father. "We're going our own way," he told him. "We split here. We don't need you any longer. We still have our truce, like you said, but you need to leave."

"Leave," his father echoed flatly. "With you ready to wreck everything I've worked for? No. I'm not leaving." He crossed his arms but his eyes traveled to Kate.

Purposefully. No mistaking what that was about.

"Then sit down and keep your comments to yourself. Kate and I are leaving - soon. Within the week. We have a life to get back to."

"And what about Diane? What about the Collective?"

"What about them?" Castle hissed.

"You know, son, I have sat by and watched as you completely lost focus on this mission. I have stood by - I have let you do what you felt was necessary. And this is the end result?"

"Stood-" Castle bit off his reactionary comment, closed it down. He had to be very careful here; he absolutely had to be careful. Kate was his first priority, and one little thing from him could shove his father on an irreconcilable path. Where killing Beckett was better than leaving her alive.

Castle sat back down on the stool, putting himself at a purposeful disadvantage. He flattened his hands on his knees and gave his father a steady look. "The mission is fubar. You know that. I shot Jolin - I take responsibility for that. I acted after a set of circumstances occurred which seemed - at the time - to justify my reasoning. It was a split second decision."

"Decision? There was no decision. That was gut-"

"When we're talking about _my_ instincts and my decisions, with _my_ serum-enhanced chemistry, then gut reaction _is_ a split second decision. I'm usually right. I might, in fact, still have been right. Had Jolin taken Beckett into custody after my wife collapsed, who knows where we'd be."

"The first should never have happened. Beckett should-"

"I take responsibility for that, full responsibility," Castle said. His voice was rough when it came out, but it was certain. He knew what he'd done. "I should have been paying attention. She _told_ me she didn't feel right and I chalked it up to - the mission." To Black, to her reasonable fear of a man who'd tried to kill her repeatedly.

A man he ought to kill. He really should. The infusion from James was cleaning up the damage done by a toxicity of regimen, and even though Black really had saved her life - in those first few hours, those first few days, yes, his father had saved her life.

But was it worth the risk of keeping him alive?

Castle shifted his hands to his outside thighs, fingered the strap on his knife, watched his father.

Black was eyeing Kate; similar thoughts were going on behind that cold gaze. Was it worthwhile to keep her alive? Wouldn't they all be better off...?

"Jolin had real information for us," Black said then. He was still watching Kate through the partially opened balcony doors. Beckett had been hunched at the railing the last Castle had seen, but he didn't dare take his eyes of Black right now to check.

"Jolin had nothing. She wanted to reel you in, that's all. She wanted you."

"But you shot her and know we'll never know. My _one_ contact with the very people who want nothing more than to dissect my whole family-"

"Not your family," Castle said quietly. "We are not family."

The resolve hardened in Black's eyes, just that fast, and just that fast, Castle was off the stool with the knife against Black's throat, his body pinned to the kitchen wall.

Out of sight of Kate.

Black's eyes were wild when they tracked to him. Castle was breathing hard, his body thrumming with awareness, rage, the last week's worth of desolation.

"I could kill you right now," Castle hissed. "I could tell her it was self-defense, tell her that you went for _her_. Because you would have - you were going to - I could see it in your eyes just now. It wouldn't even be that much of a deception. I could slide the knife into your throat, right here, and tear out your jugular."

Black opened his mouth.

Castle leaned in hard against Black's sternum, felt the slight give of a bone about to crack. "I could do it. Nothing to stop me - but her. She stops me. She's the one keeping you alive."

Castle stepped back slowly, let his father's feet touch the floor again, and he sheathed the knife.

Black tilted his head against the wall and closed his eyes. Castle had no idea whether that was real or fake, but it looked fucking honest, whatever it was.

"We have a truce," Castle said, voice deadly. "You break the truce, you know what happens. We have a name now - Jolin - and Kate and I have a team - we can work on this however we need, however it has to happen. There is a plan in place. This particular mission is over - was over, the moment I shot Jolin. But the program? The program remains. Don't forget that. The program is all you care about anyway, and it's still here. So long as Kate lives."

Black didn't open his eyes, didn't even drop his chin, just clenched a fist and pressed it hard into his own thigh, swallowing roughly.

Castle had probably damaged the man's windpipe, just a little. Too bad.

"I'm going out," Castle said, putting it on the line. All of it. He took a deep breath. "I've got to arrange for travel. Kate and I leave the moment we get documents. And you - go back to wherever you came from. Truce remains."

And then Castle headed to the balcony doors to let Beckett know he was leaving. She had a gun in the pocket of her sweatshirt - he'd put it back in her pocket when he'd helped her dress again - and she was strong enough.

Plus Beckett had something to prove. And Black - Black did too.

He was gambling with his life here, but he'd seen the reality hitting his father in the form of a knife to the throat. Kate lived or everything died.

* * *

><p>Her name was a rasp on the wind and Kate turned around, stiffened at the man in the doorway.<p>

She should have gone back inside. Should have gone inside the _moment_ Castle said he was leaving her alone with him.

"John," she murmured. The wind picked up again and blew a scattering of new, green leaves across the balcony. She was viscerally aware of the railing at her back, only waist-high. "Let's go inside for this. It's getting cold."

He gave her a blank look for a moment, and then she saw the instinct and impetus fade; he turned around and went back through the doors and inside the apartment.

Kate's heart was pounding, but miracle of miracles, she was still standing.

She followed him back inside and pulled one of the doors closed, left the other standing open. As if it was a viable escape route. Who was she kidding? She couldn't escape that way, she'd never make it to the door; it would be the bathroom to hole up in until Castle got back.

She had the gun, but she wished she had the knife. She wished Castle didn't.

"Katherine," he said.

She gestured to the red chair, offering it up for its services, and Black actually sank down into it. He was too tall for its post-modern structure, and his knees jutted up like islands marooned from the land mass of his body, the red sea unforgiving around him.

"You have something you want to say?" she started. She was going to try this standing up; she definitely couldn't sit on the bed and expect to feel in control.

"I do?"

And just like that, Beckett stopped being afraid.

Oh, she had a healthy respect for her life. But she saw now whatever it was that Castle had seen that had allowed him to leave her alone with Black, even knowing that Mitchell was basically right next door. She saw it on John Black's face, and whatever that argument had been about - other than Castle shouting _She's the best thing that ever happened to me_ - this was more.

Naked and raw, finally stripped, John Black's face revealed more than it should have to be so flat and blank.

It closed up her throat, seeing him, because she felt it somehow too: what it was to want Castle so badly, and to have him shut you out.

Kate sank down to the edge of the mattress and put her hands between her knees, stared at John Black.

She didn't know what to say. She had tried everything, she had played his game, she had pointed out his flaws, she had shown him where he'd gone wrong, she had offered him a different future - a future with them in it, all of them, a packaged deal.

She didn't know what to do now.

He was so much like Castle sometimes. In those small, mostly physical ways, he had the look of her husband. The wide hands, the broad shoulders, the way they carried themselves, their walk.

To want Castle _so_ much, and to be met with loathing.

God, it made her ache just to think of it.

"John," she husked, biting her inside lip at the way it came out. "John, I don't know that I can help you. If he - if you go too far. I don't know that I can stop him."

Black didn't react, didn't look at her. She pressed her palms together and breathed past the sudden kinship, the empathy roaring through her.

"He has your hands," she rasped. She was going to cry. Oh God, why was she doing this right now? This was a very bad idea. She'd had a terrible week, and she didn't have the strength of mind to battle wits with John Black.

"What?"

She lifted her eyes and saw him staring at her. As if without his permission, his gaze dropped to his own hands and his fingers released.

"I'm trying to do right by him," she said, starting over. "I'm doing my best. I know it's not perfect, it's not - super. But it's - what we've both chosen. And now our son is in this too. We were probably foolish to think we could have a son. But you did. You had a son."

Black lifted both hands, suspended a moment in the air as if seeing them for the first time, or maybe as if in supplication, and then he scrubbed them hard down his face. When they dropped, the mask was back in place, the cool arrogance, the calm assurance.

"Don't tell me about my son," he said, pointing a finger at her. "One day, one day I hope your son does to you what you've caused my son to do to me. I wish that on you. I hope James lives a long and healthy life completely reviling every second you breathe. And you - you with no way to change things, no way to prove yourself. Your life in dust and ashes, a sour taste in your mouth."

Black stood up, a towering wraith, malevolence to rival the darkest presence, and he swept out of the living room and closeted himself in the master, closing the door on her.

Kate swallowed, tried it again, but it was no good. She got up on strangely steady feet and moved for the bathroom, flipping the flimsy lock in the knob behind her. Her hand shook only once as she turned on the shower, thinking only to make noise, cover the sounds of her breakdown.

But she didn't break down. Instead, she found herself stripping out of her clothes. Slowly, piece by piece revealing the scrawny woman with the black tattoo and white ribs and hair matted from too much sleep.

That woman was over.

She stepped into the shower and began scrubbing her away.

It was time to go home to her son.


	3. Chapter 3

**Close Encounters 24**

* * *

><p>Castle was only gone an hour, meting up with a contact inside the RTL buildings who could get them the visas needed to fly out. When he got back to Old Town Cologne, he used his phone to check in with Mitch who had set up on the second floor of their building, got a confirmed okay on the premises, and so he went on up and unlocked the door. The living room was askew with pink light, the sun setting obscenely through the windows.<p>

He found Kate outside on the balcony, standing on her own, alone, her hair soaking wet on her neck and staining her shirt. His father was nowhere in sight, but at least she seemed unmolested.

It had been a risk, and seeing her now, the drape of _his_ t-shirt over her thin shoulder and the arch of her neck as she turned her head to look at him - seeing her made it all so vivid and drastic, what he'd done in leaving her alone.

He didn't know if he'd ever recover from this. Ten days of torment, time marked only by the seconds she was still breathing, the moments her heart still beat. Days had slid into each other and bunched up and now they were nearly at two weeks and here she was alive.

But his father still wanted her dead.

Kate turned her head away from him, eyes back on the horizon.

"So here you are," he said, trying for light. He knew it came out still soured by his fight with Black. "On the balcony again."

"I couldn't stay in there," she said, turning her face to the last of the sun.

Beautiful light painted the planes of her cheeks and the sweep of her forehead, the archetype of a Maxfield Parrish painting, orange and pink and golden, her skin soaking up the sun and making her seem flush with health.

Castle came to stand just behind her at the railing, trying not to cast a shadow. "I'm sorry I left you with him," he husked.

"He didn't touch me," she said. "I just wanted out."

She hadn't said _he didn't hurt me_, and she hadn't looked at him when she'd said it.

"Kate," he choked out.

She turned now, that look over her shoulder, skin reflecting the warm spectrum of a rainbow. "I'd rather you're out there working to get us home, than in here because you're worried about whether or not I can handle his mind games."

He could break things if he wasn't careful; he could seriously do irrevocable damage. Castle was both furious and abjectly, pathetically grateful. He wanted to smash Black's face into the wall for talking to her, but he also wanted to drop to his knees and prostrate himself before them both.

Just don't die. Just keep breathing. Just don't let her die.

Black had saved her life. And whatever it was that had gone on between them in the last hour, it had Kate up and showered and standing at the balcony railing without even needing to lean against it. So strong, filled with light. Serious, definitely with him.

"Stop," Kate murmured, her voice a sigh. She turned and leaned against him finally, letting him be her strength. "You're getting worked up over nothing."

"Hell," he swore, dropping his face into her neck. "You're showered and dressed and I didn't even help; you're outside and standing and _breathing_. When I left here, I'd just said some pretty terrible things to both of you, and so fuck, yes, I'm worked up."

She pressed her hand to his cheek, thumb rubbing over and over the beard. He breathed shallowly, the scent of spicy lemon and coconut milk that was the intriguing combination of her shampoo and soap. Showered. Dressed. Still standing.

Kate scratched the little patch at the side where the beard didn't grow in thick enough and then her mouth glanced across his. The kiss surprised him, taken completely off-guard in his mourning, and he laughed against her lips.

She smiled and then pulled back. "I want to - get out. A little. Can't we?"

"Get out?" he said, certain he had heard her wrong.

"I said some pretty terrible things too," she murmured.

"No," he softened, dipping his knees to look her in the eyes. But she wasn't shy; she was sad. Insular. "You only gave me a reality check. I needed someone to tell me to get my own head out of my ass."

"I heard you yelling at him," she said, frowning. "I heard what you said."

"It's all true," he scraped. "It's true. You're the best thing that-"

"I know," she said, and she had this little quirk to her lips. It made his grief-stricken heart break open, the trauma-hardened pieces fall off so that the tender, stronger muscle below could beat again. He found himself smiling too, echoing that quirk, and he wrapped her in his arms.

But she shimmied out of them. "I want to get out of here. I want to - walk around down there with you. I need to condition - build up my strength again so that I can go home. We can go home."

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "We're going home, Kate."

"I really need to get out of this apartment," she whispered.

He clutched her hand, worried by the seriousness carving lines at her mouth. "You know you're the best thing that's ever happened to me, Kate. No matter what the hell he said to you. You're-"

"No, I know." She turned her head so that her face caught the very last of the light. "You were rather emphatic in there. But it doesn't take yelling for me to believe. We got history, Castle."

There was a little smile now.

"And a kid," he added, hoping to coax more of that smile out of her. "No matter what he says, he can't-"

She closed her eyes and somehow his comment had made it worse. Because James was so far from them? Because she didn't like talking about what hurt.

"Can we please-"

"Okay," he said in a rush. "You want to go? We'll go. We'll get out of here for a while."

He was still wearing the hooded sweatshirt and fitted jeans after his visit to the district near the river, and all she needed was her baggy sweatshirt to hide her shape, and they were good. "Go get your grey hoodie. It's warm - should work for tonight."

"Yeah?" she said, a little breathless. Though not from exhaustion, he thought, just excitement.

"Yeah. Of course. Some fresh air. Can you walk?"

"Can I _walk_?" she muttered. "Damn well going to."

Castle laughed, though it really - really - wasn't funny. But he liked her spitting fire and bristling; it eased his heart. And this time he was going to pay damn strict attention. "Yeah, babe, I know. Stupid question."

"Let's go, Rick. I want to get out of here."

"You don't even know yet where we're going."

"Neither do you," she snorted. "So stop stalling."

It was Kate who pushed back into the bedroom, striding forward to lead the way like an Amazonian warrior, and he closed the balcony doors after them, watching her.

She was beautiful. She was _alive_. He was never going to forget how they'd gotten here.

* * *

><p>Twilight had cast long fingers into the city; she could smell the river from the street, the harbor and the dark scent of water. But it was difficult to appreciate the sights when she'd broken out into a sweat, when her hands were beginning to shake from the curling edge of exhaustion.<p>

She had to stop. Just for a second, and Castle became a wall at her front, his hand cupping the back of her neck and his voice murmuring nonsense into her ear, soothing, encouraging.

That he didn't insist on turning around and marching her right back to that apartment was like a victory in and of itself. In return for that trust, she didn't want to make him miserable by relapsing.

So she leaned against him, eyes open to watch the uncurious foot traffic as it flowed around them. No one looked, no one cared, and she could take what time she needed to catch her breath again.

She might have faded out a second because the next thing she knew, she was being nudged backwards, pushed towards the dingy, brick building beside them.

"What are you doing?" she rasped.

"You need to sit," he insisted.

She glanced to the bare window and saw the vivid neon in pink and yellow flare to life in that very instant. Her German was rusty, and she was struggling with the words - stuck on _open_ which she expected to see but didn't - when Castle reached to open the door.

And then it became clear. "In a tattoo parlor?"

It was too late to protest; he was already carrying her inside. She felt like an idiot; she should have known she couldn't make it this far. She should have agreed to once around the block and back to the apartment. But she'd pushed - she'd been pushing to get better since that video call with her father, since she'd heard her son crying for her.

Since she'd seen Castle's face when she woke and he'd fallen into her neck and begged her not to do that again. Every breath a struggle, every heartbeat precious, and each time she came back to consciousness, she was aware of how long it had been without.

"Sit," Castle said. He was nudging her into waiting room plastic chairs.

She sat. She'd been pushing so hard, too, because close quarters with Black made her afraid, and it made Castle murderous, and it fed this vicious cycle with the three of them. She was afraid he'd do something to Black and ruin their only source of information on the regimen - which now not only Castle depended on, but perhaps also their son. And here lately, _herself_. And this afternoon, she had seen in that moment on the balcony how close Black was to ceasing to rein himself in, how close he was to simply shoving her over the edge into a sleep she wouldn't wake from.

"Stay," Castle growled. He trapped her at the chair when she tried to get to her feet. She had a bad feeling she knew what came next.

The man at the counter had already started to protest, _this is for paying customers_, but Castle had walked forward and was negotiating something with him. Maybe he could charm the man into letting them use these seats for an hour or two to just rest, and so she let herself play the victim - wounded and exhausted - to help his cause.

Well, she was. Not a far cry from the actual truth. Wounded and exhausted.

Afraid still too, somewhere deep, even though she had been dry-eyed through her shower after that exchange with Black.

She closed her eyes and found herself drifting into sleep even sitting up, but that was dangerous. Out in public, with the way her chest sometimes caved in, with the way Castle panicked. She needed to stay awake just to let him know she was okay.

She _was_ okay; she was determined to be okay. She had to fly home in a few days.

Kate opened her eyes and Castle was hunched over the counter, scratching out something on a pad of paper. Was he _paying_ the man for a damn seat?

"Rick-"

He waved her off, and she snorted at him, settling back in the sticky plastic chair. Let him do what he wanted; she could use the time to recover. The chair wasn't exactly comfortable, which was good, because it would keep her awake, but she let her lids fall halfway down, watching him at the counter. She realized he was drawing.

Kate sat up again, her elbows on her knees to ease the weight of her own ribs across her lungs, and she swallowed back the strange sensation of being not in the right place. Neither of them could really be here, could they? It didn't feel real.

They were in a tattoo parlor in Cologne and she had _just_ told him - get a damn tattoo. Was he _serious_?

"Rick," she tried again.

Castle turned then and held up the piece of paper, walking towards her. "Is this it? I'm drawing from memory."

She blinked. On the sheet of paper, he'd drawn the wolf image from the cufflinks she'd given him, her _thank you for knocking me up_ gift. It was such bold, black ink on the page.

"The eye is - more sloped," she said, her breath leaving her. That was her - that was how she had - that was their celebration of all those dreams...

"Ah, you're right." Castle returned to the counter with it and she had the sudden terrible realization that her husband was actually getting a tattoo.

But he was a spy. He couldn't be marked.

"Rick," she said, panic creeping into her voice.

He immediately was in front of her, cupping her shoulders. "Kate, are you okay?"

"What are you doing?" she said, gripping a fistful of his sweatshirt. "What are you doing?"

"Marking myself," he said grimly.

Oh, _fuck_. That damn fight. And then with Black, that stuff about not leaving a trace, never leaving a mark. "Don't make this about him. A tattoo is permanent. You've seen mine," she hissed.

"Yours is fucking intense," he murmured, a soft kiss to her lips that belied that harshness of his statement. "It's a memorial. It marks something important, and even though it's a raw part of your life, it's brought you here. Us here. Do you regret it?"

"The tattoo?" she muttered, even though she knew that wasn't what he was asking. He was asking about their son, and they'd carefully not talked about this, about what it was doing to them. "Don't put ink on your skin just to make a statement, to rebel against your father." Though that had been one of _her _reasons, at the time. "I was - working through something, Castle. It always brings that to mind." That grief. She didn't want him to dwell there.

"I want it to. I'm doing the same as you, working through it. This isn't for Black. This is for me. To mark what we've gone through. To remind myself that it's worth it."

"You need a reminder?" A reminder that she-

"That nearly killing you is worth it?" he growled. "Yeah, I do. Because it's damn hard to believe that it was worth this."

She froze. He meant _James_.

"Castle."

He swallowed hard and gripped the back of her neck, forehead to forehead. "Kate, I won't lie. I love him. I'd never be right again if something happened to him. But if you had died - if it - I'd never have made it back, never have - it's just not..."

"Okay," she croaked, trying to push them past that confession. "I - I know." They were the same, the same, hadn't she always said it? Had she thought James would change them? "Just... you're not supposed to have identifiable marks-"

"You do. And I will too. Because this is my life, this is who I am, who I want to be. I want you and I want our son, and no amount of heartache or terror or fucked-up DNA can change that - because it's not an exchange, it's not one or the other. It's our life. Ours."

And so he was getting a tattoo. She remembered him once telling her that the scars were important, the one on his wrist from the machete that had nearly taken his hand, the ones across his back, even the ones she'd been the cause of - those scars had proved he'd fought and lived, proved it had mattered. And those were fading because of the regimen.

He was trying to hang on to what mattered to him, trying to keep hold of his humanity in the face of this encroaching super machine.

Kate released his jacket and moved her fingers to the zipper, tugging it down. "Okay," she said, pushing it aside to reveal the black t-shirt underneath. "But I want to watch."

"Sexy," he murmured, smirking at her. It was the first real smile with _heat_ that she'd seen on his face in nine days.

* * *

><p>The tattoo artist spoke a halting German that sounded surprisingly natural at times, as if he'd watched television to learn his language. Castle thought he was a foreign national, so he nudged his wife and Kate tried out her limited Croatian with him.<p>

Dragomir, as he introduced himself, beamed at her and spoke rapidly in an accent that Kate - from the look on her face - didn't known, but of course, was managing anyway, making the man into a fast friend.

She was also hiding her weakness pretty smoothly, Castle had to admit. Doing a better job of rallying physically than he was emotionally. But he already felt better knowing the ink would be in place, that it would leave its mark. He couldn't be reconciled to most of what had happened to them in the last nine days, but Kate was alive.

Kate was alive and leaning in close to him, her front pressed at his side as he stood before the counter. Dragomir was waiting on them, the flow of language stopped, but Castle was struggling to think past the feel of her body so intimately against his.

It had been a long time, long time since he'd seen her strong. Not in body, that wasn't even it. Just - the strength of spirit in her eyes, in the firm set to her mouth, the confidence. _She_ believed she was strong, and that was healing too.

"Rick?" she said, an eyebrow raising.

He made the effort to bring himself back to the conversation. "Yeah. What do you need?"

Her fingers dipped to the crook of his arm, using him as balance. "He wants to know how big and where you want it," she said. The smirk on her face would've made a lesser man blush, but he merely narrowed his eyes at her.

Castle leaned in, lips brushing her ear. "You already know how big and where you want it."

She laughed, leaning a hip against the counter where the bottles of ink were on display. "Yeah, babe, I do," she said, smiling with her eyes. "But your manhood's not in question here. Oh, well, is a tattoo a question of manhood?"

"_You_ have a tattoo," he said again.

She turned back to her friend, Dragomir, who was as docile and happy as a lifelong admirer. Just like Sasha, Dragomir had the markings of a wolf but the temperament of a dog - loyal, a friend. Castle actually liked this guy; it was fitting that Kate had drawn into her spell the man who was going to ink him. She was asking Dragomir about the ink, he thought, or maybe how big they could reproduce his line sketch.

In the meantime, how big and where did he want it? He had an idea, but he wanted her to like it too.

"I know where," he said. "My chest." Castle shrugged off his plaid shirt and then tugged the black tee over his head as well, whipping it off in seconds, bare-chested.

Kate laughed, her head tilting as she smiled at him. "I guess that's one way to answer, but I told you, Castle - your manhood's not in question. Put your shirt on until he's ready for you."

* * *

><p>They were alone for a moment in the room, Castle sitting on the old, contoured chair where the inking would be done. She was leaning back in a plastic chair near the wall, her head in her hand, cheek at the heel of her hand so that her lashes seemed to brush her skin whenever she blinked.<p>

He couldn't stop watching her; she was watching him too. They were doing this together, even if he was the only one getting inked.

"What are you thinking, Castle?" she asked him, but her eyes roved his bare chest.

It was like she'd touched him, that look, and he felt it race through his body and zap his blood, so fiercely that he wished she'd stand up and come to him.

"Rick?"

"'Here," he husked.

Castle reached out his hand for hers, turning to her, and she stood as if mesmerized purely by the tone in his voice. When she was close enough, he took her by the wrist, pulled her against the plastic edge where his legs dangled over the side of the chair. She came between his spread knees and he smoothed his thumb at her palm and unfurled her fingers, placed her hand over his heart.

Her skin was so alive, so hot against his own skin. He could feel the wild pound of his heart in response to her. "I'm thinking - I want it right here. Just like this."

"You can't hide something like that," she murmured. "Unless it was small-"

"No. Big as your hand," he said. "Tell him. I want you to put your hand on me and cover it completely. Measure it out against your hand, love."

"Mine?"

"You fit to me."

Her fingers curled under his clasp and stroked his bare skin; her eyes were the darkness found in the dense forest, where the light never reached but things still moved, water flowed no matter the obstacles.

He was going to attack her, if she didn't stop looking at him like that. He was going to have to drag her into his lap and press her down into the chair-

The door opened and Dragomir came inside with his hand-drawn rendering of the tattoo. Kate's fingers eased on Castle's chest and she turned her head and spoke Croatian in that Slavic accent that he loved. Sexy, dark. Exactly right for a tattoo parlor in Germany with his wife escaping Death.

_because I could not stop for Death_

Dragomir nodded to her instructions and came to him, placed his hand over theirs. "Da." And then he pushed on Castle's shoulder, forcing him down, speaking to Kate.

"He says to lie down so you don't flinch," she chuckled. "But also that he is going to take his time. It's large - maybe a few days, repeated sessions. The lines are bold. The wolf-" She caught her breath and her hand came to grip his. "The wolf is strong."

"They are," Castle murmured, looking past the bright light towards his wife. "Sit with me in case I flinch. Dragomir can pull the chair up for you."

She leaned in and pressed a kiss to his knuckles, and then she asked the tattoo artist to help her get situated. Dragomir seemed happy to help. He even went out and came back with a bottle of water and fresh bread, piled them in Kate's lap before she could protest.

When the man came to sit beside Castle at the contoured chair, he hunched over Castle's chest like it was canvas. He shaved the slope of skin above his heart, cleaned it with alcohol and soap, and then he traced a design with his fingers, as if judging the shape of things.

There was no image transfer, none of the tricks of modern tattooing; he had done a stylized, fiercer version of the wolf on his own and that would be what he would ink. It looked tribal, pagan - sacred.

Dragomir framed the measure of Kate's hands with his own fingers, and then he made small dots with the tattooing needle. They felt like nothing more than scratches, and Castle hoped it would be more than that, hoped he'd look back on this day and remember feeling it.

Dragomir started first with the curve of the wolf's eye, pressing the needle with its thick, black ink into Castle's chest as if the wolf was piercing his heart.

Kate sat with him and held his hand.

* * *

><p>Shit, it shouldn't be so sexy.<p>

He was marking himself with a definitely identifiable tattoo; he would be forced to cover it for every mission and if he was captured, it was a way to trace him.

He was _branded_.

But her heart kept clenching. She had his hand in hers, and his blood rushed under her fingers where she circled his wrist. He had closed his eyes, and he looked like he was asleep, not even a flinch, and the lines came up with the buzz of the electric needle.

The wolf. Fit to be hidden by her hand, protected by her touch.

It was sexy and it was heartbreaking, it was romantic, and she loved him. She loved him, and it gave her strength when she ought to be laid out with exhaustion right now.

She wondered if it hurt. If this was a more socially acceptable way to channel that instinct to cut himself and see how much it bled, to press the blade of a knife into his arms just to make a mark. Was he reveling in it now? Enduring each hard, sharp prick of the needle?

His fingers began to play with hers, teasing her wrist and the vulnerable skin at her pulse, so she did the same to him. Her heart rate jumped every time his thumb skied the cup of her hand and stroked the heel of her hand. She had to remind herself to calm down, breathe.

His fingers tightened around hers and she shivered.

"Drink the water," he told her, voice like gravel as he spoke through the clip and buzz of the needle.

She put the bottle of water to her lips and took another sip to appease him. She'd even eaten the bread because Dragomir kept glancing to her as if checking to be sure she wasn't about to pass out. She wasn't - she wouldn't, just for Castle's sake - but she also kept in mind that she never knew the line not to cross until she'd already crossed it. So let Castle tell her what to do for a little while.

The door was closed to the work room, which made it warm and close, and if it weren't for the third person at the chair with them, this would feel like their own panic room. The soft-focus red walls and the bottles of ink, the buzz of the needle were both soothing and electrifying, secure and yet so dangerous.

Like their life, their jobs as spies, their love.

Castle was getting inked for her, because of her. A wolf right over his heart. She could see now the shape of the muzzle in those bold black lines, like the totem animals in Native American art. Sharp, stylized, angry. Even though Dragomir had never seen her own tattoo, it matched, in a way - her bear with its bristling outline and bleak Russian. The Cyrillic script inside the bear's angular shape gave it the same look as the totem wolf on those cufflinks.

Maybe that was why she'd chosen them, celebrating all the ways they'd come together and meshed, created life. Blending.

It was a bestial design; it was powerful: the narrow face, the flare of the eye, the bristle of fur. It would take more than one sitting to get it done. Clearly, Dragomir worked the skin like it was art, the ink his paint, and she was glad because it meant they'd have something to fill the hours before they could finally go home.

The ink made Castle's broad chest seem more - coarse. The mark of the wolf on his skin was the blaze of purpose, of a grief and terror so life-changing that the image of it had appeared on his chest like a scar lifted straight from his warrior's heart.

Beautiful. It was a beautiful recreation of their love and his promises to her, of everything he had given her and would give her. It marked them both.

It would take time to get used to this; she knew in the future he would pull off his shirt and she'd check herself, struck by the fierceness of that wolf over his heart. But all she had to do was place her hand over it and tame the beast, calm him, and he was no longer the wild thing.

What machine? Richard Castle could never be a machine. He was raw and vivid and _feeling_. He'd never be a machine, no matter how many scars faded, no matter the cold logic of his training, no matter a life spent drilled into perfection.

She'd seen him - from the beginning - his true nature: the man at civil war, passionate and violent and all-consuming. That was no machine, it was a deadly intent and powerful appetite for _life_.

The needle buzzed and Kate laid her head down at Castle's hip, closing her eyes, suddenly exhausted with all of it. His hand flipped and cupped the back of her head, fingers stroking through her hair and scratching her scalp, and she knew this marked a new road for them.

This had changed things. It had changed her. She was no longer willing to run after the regimen when all she wanted, needed, was right here under her cheek. More than that, she was completely unwilling to let _this_ be her obsession, not when she had a son to make it home to, not when she wanted James to _know_ her.

Life. She wanted life with Castle - that intense, vivid, no-holds-barred life that he absolutely attacked with every fiber of his being. She craved _that_ more than any quest, any obsession.

They needed to find a new balance. They were marked by this, but just like those scars, it would serve as a reminder that they were alive, that they'd fought for each other, that they would never give up.

She would never give up.


	4. Chapter 4

**Close Encounters 24**

* * *

><p>Castle sat upright in the plastic chair with Kate leaning against his other side. At some point during the inking, another tattoo artist had come in to watch, sitting on a high stool with a good view. When the initial round of ink was finished, the woman, Mari, came to him with astringent and cleaning cloths and took care of cleaning him up. Dragomir waited close at hand, studying the artwork and the ink, and then the woman stepped back.<p>

She was Japanese, exotic, beautiful in a humble way, and her gaze was assessing. After a moment, she turned to Dragomir and said, "The neck is too thin. It needs retouching."

Castle laughed, felt Kate chuckling beside him. "You both speak English?" he grinned.

Dragomir turned surprised eyes on them. "We do. We met in the States. Are you American?"

Castle shook his head, lied. "Canadian."

"Your German is impressive. And ma'am, I have never heard anyone speak Croatian so beautifully."

Neither of them explained _why_ they had acted the native, though Dragomir had a knowing look in his eye. Kate's fingers circled Castle's wrist and squeezed once in warning, but he was already aware. They couldn't afford to let out too much information, not when they had German police looking for them, the Collective on their asses, and Black on top of it all.

And he had at least three more sessions with these two before the tattoo was finished.

Mari nudged her partner.

"Keep your silence," Dragomir said. "We understand. Mari and I have our own past we are stepping away from."

Stepping away from. He liked that. "You'll never return to the States?" Castle asked, since they had offered.

"It's not for us. Or rather, we're not for it," Mari said softly, her sounds melodic. But she was smiling and she winked at Dragomir as she put away the astringent.

"We married there," the man said. "It's special for that reason. But we won't go back."

Dragomir didn't sit back down, simply held out the instrument to his wife. She took the needle from her husband's hands, settled her hip against the chair. The ring on her finger was jade and sapphire, and it burned under the light as she moved towards him.

Castle paused. He had thought they were done. "Should I-?"

"You don't need to lie down. I'm going to rework the neck - but just like this."

"You don't flinch as much as I expected," Dragomir grinned.

Kate laughed at his side, though Castle could hear how exhausted she was. He squeezed her hand with his free one, and she turned her lips to kiss his bare shoulder. He hoped this went fast; he needed to get her back to the apartment, back in bed.

Mari's fingers were defter, lighter, drawing his skin tight to work the needle. She inked like his chest was a garment, whereas Dragomir inked like he was completing a painting. Castle figured Mari always did these kinds of touch-ups, since she worked within and through her husband's masterpiece with ease and skill.

When it was done, the session had taken four hours. Kate had told him once that the bear she'd gotten had been two sessions at a tattoo and piercing parlor down in Greenwich Village. With the outline of the bear completed, she had thought that would be it, enough. But her father had been furious, uncomprehending, and then he had gone to a bar and she had gone back to get the Russian words written inside it, one more session to seal her fate.

Castle had never met that man, the Jim Beckett who had abdicated his responsibilities and turned away from his daughter and into grief. Castle was thankful, desperately grateful, for everything Jim was for them now - grandfather, father, their son's guardian. That other man was nowhere in sight, and Castle wondered if - in ten years - what James would say about them, their parenting choices.

Mari came back with a thin petroleum jelly in an unlabeled jar, held it up with a little shake. "A thick coating. Seal it with plastic wrap or cling wrap, tape it down with surgical tape to keep it clean. Wet heal. It will keep the ink vivid and it will not slough off quite as much."

Dragomir gave Castle's tattoo a critical eye. "I can - if you need to rush - it is possible to get this done in the next session. In two days."

"Two days," Castle repeated. He saw Kate glancing his way, her eyes roving over the half-finished wolf. "I'll be back here day after tomorrow. Same time?"

"Any time," Mari said. She extended the jar to Kate. "For three weeks after as well. Three weeks to heal."

Three weeks to heal.

"You can tape him up now. I'll bring you what you need." Mari disappeared and Dragomir followed, so that he and Kate were alone in the small room.

Kate turned the jar over in her fingers and tried to open it, but she didn't seem to have the strength. Castle took it quietly from her and twisted off the lid, handed it back. She sighed but moved to stand before him.

Mari came back with plastic wrap and tape, and then she was gone.

"I guess they think this is an intimate moment," Kate said quietly. She was leaning against the side of the chair, her hand on his thigh for balance. "Just between us."

"Isn't it though?"

She nodded. "Does it hurt?"

"No. Just numb."

"Mine - I think it just stung, like scratches at my skin, irritated."

"Not even that," he grimaced. Super again. "I wish it had."

She smiled. "Only one of us gets to be a glutton for punishment."

His hand came up almost without his will, and he combed her hair back behind her ear, brushed her cheek with his thumb. "Can we take turns, love? I think you've had enough."

Kate closed her eyes and turned her lips to his touch, stayed there a moment longer, almost long enough to make his heart clench. But then she opened her eyes, a new look in them.

"I think we've both had enough." She raised her palm to his chest and lightly covered the wolf; it disappeared below her palm, trapping the heat of reddened skin, making his body ache for her.

He was surprised. He shouldn't be surprised though - he always wanted her - but these last nine days had been more about wanting her to live than just wanting.

Kate released the wolf and dipped her fingers to the vaseline, scooped it out and raised it over his chest. She wriggled an eyebrow and then lowered her grease-coated fingers to his skin. It felt cold, intense; it felt like a live wire was strung right to his bones, crackling with electricity, his heart trapped in the Faraday cage of his ribs.

"Kate," he rasped.

"You know I love you."

He stared at her as she spread the vaseline across the black ink, her fingers following the pattern, her eyes fixed on the wolf. "Kate."

"I don't have words to make it okay again," she said, her gaze finally lifting to his. "But I hope this helps you."

He nodded, his heart in his throat, and she smoothed the vaseline over the last of it. He waited while she pressed the plastic wrap to his skin, protecting the ink, and then she taped it in a neat rectangle over his heart.

"I love you, too," he told her. "And every little bit helps. Seeing you smile helps."

And she did, turned on just like that, soft and a little sweet with her tiredness. She trailed her fingers down his sternum, wiping the last of the petroleum jelly from her skin to his. He leaned in and embraced her, and she fell into his arms with a sigh.

"You tired, baby?"

"Yeah."

"We'll have to go back."

"I can walk."

"When you can't, let me know."

"I will."

She pulled back and handed him his shirt. She was wearing the plaid over her own t-shirt, and she didn't offer that one, so he carefully tugged the black t-shirt over his head. She had their sweatshirts too, and he helped her first, the tails of the red plaid sticking out of the bottom. He pulled on his own hooded sweatshirt and got off the table.

He took her hand - still greasy - and laced their fingers as he headed for the door. He would pay Dragomir up front, and then they would make a slow journey back to the apartment. As slow as she needed, however long it took.

* * *

><p>It was warm and nearly dawn by the time they made it back to the apartment. Castle had made her stop to rest every fifteen minutes, talking to her to keep her awake, afraid to let her drift too much. When they struggled through the door, Kate swayed and her knees dipped; he caught her the moment before she collapsed.<p>

"Kate," he sighed. She gripped his sweatshirt and he gave up on allowing her dignity, gave up on being brave; he swept her off her feet and carried her to the bed still pushed in front the balcony.

"He's gone," Kate rasped. Her nose was cold against his neck despite the sweat he could see at her temples.

"He's-?"

"John Black."

"Oh. I told him we were leaving soon. He's probably working on some damn scheme to regain his rightful place in world politics."

Kate giggled.

He lowered her to the bed and gave her a long look. "Did you just snort?"

"No." She wormed into the sheets, averting her eyes.

"But you _did_ giggle."

"I..." Kate wrinkled her nose. "I need a shower. I feel gross. Sweaty and clammy at the same time."

"Sweaty and clammy. Sexy."

"Shut up. Let me get-"

"Sweetheart-"

"Castle," she growled, gripping him by the wrist.

He stopped trying to push her down and instead let her haul herself up using him like a rope. She stumbled when she let go, momentum carrying her towards the bathroom, but he caught her around the waist.

"Rick," she whined. "No, don't. I just-"

"Let me at least help you. A bath, okay? No shower."

She huffed but it was mostly for show; her legs trembled with muscle fatigue at every step. Castle angled her towards the bathroom, steering when necessary, supporting her weight when it felt like she might give way. He was glad his father was out, because a bath would do her wonders, and it would be easier than standing up under the spray.

He lowered her to the lid of the toilet seat, caught her looking away from him. He brushed his thumb over her cheek, and then moved to twist on the hot water. He plugged the drain and tested the temperature with his wrist, adjusting it unnecessarily so that she could regain her composure.

She hooked her fingers in his jeans pocket and he turned, saw the apology on her face. Castle crouched before her, thumbs at her waist to 'help' undress the layers if she needed him.

"We had a good day," he said. He tried not to let it be a question.

Her lips quirked. "We did. I'm worn out but it was good."

"You'll come with me day after tomorrow for the next session, right?"

"Of course." Suddenly her mouth split wide in a yawn and she covered it up, shaking her head as she leaned towards him. She spoke around the yawn. "Wouldn't miss it."

"It's a good tattoo," he said, and that was a question too.

"It's beautiful," she murmured, fingers nudging his chest. "Does it hurt?"

"Still doesn't - I guess it feels a little irritated."

She nodded, studying him a moment, obviously tired and taking her time. "Will you stay?"

"And guard the door?" he smiled softly. It wasn't funny. He'd laid down an ultimatum to his father, given him a definite deadline, and Black was out there making his own plans now.

"Yeah. And... I don't want to fall asleep."

"No, babe, I won't let you fall asleep. Not in the bath."

She took a shaky breath in and nodded, and then she lifted her arms to him like a child. Castle slid his fingers to the hem of the sweatshirt and pulled it slowly over her head. She looked so sad, suddenly, so worn out; he wanted only to make it better, to make everything disappear.

"Kate," he murmured.

She turned her gaze to his and her smile was cracked, thin. "I miss you. I miss our son."

His eyes burned with it and he leaned in, softly kissed her. "You're getting better, Kate. You just walked the city for hours, and the day before you barely got out of bed. It'll be soon. Get good sleep tomorrow, come with me for the last session, and then we'll arrange transport out of here."

She gave him a long, searching look. "You promise?"

"I promise. We're going home."

* * *

><p>Kate had fallen asleep standing up.<p>

She'd been leaning against him in only his black t-shirt while he'd towel-dried her hair when her body seemed to just let go. He rocked back to take more of her weight, an arm slung low at her waist, and he carefully finished squeezing the wet ends of her hair into the towel with his fist.

He tossed it aside and cradled her head to the slope of his bare shoulder, and then gently slid his other arm behind her knees, bringing her to his chest. She didn't even stir; she had passed out. He hadn't even had the chance to get dressed again himself; he was only in boxers.

He had just laid Kate down on top of the covers, hunched over the bed, when he heard the harsh voice of his father cut through the room.

"What _happened _to you? I've been out searching for you for _hours-"_

Castle bowed his head over Kate's sleeping form, closed his eyes to keep out his father's voice. Strangely, with his eyes closed and that voice in his ear, he saw that moment in the alley where Black had tried to murder her, but now it was superimposed over the moment in the van when his father had saved their lives. Her life.

He saw them both, and it gave him a certain control. "You don't need to worry about us. Neither of us are your responsibility any longer."

"Someone needs to be responsible. Out all night into the very hours of the morning. Are you _trying_ to make her relapse?"

Castle flared white-hot and jumped to his feet, spinning around to confront his father. It wasn't violence this time, but it was hurt - it was a jab at an already-festering wound in his chest.

But when he turned around, Black stepped back - staggered back - as if already struck. He was staring at Castle in horror. "What the _fuck_ have you done?"

The tattoo. Castle pitched his voice low to keep from waking Kate, and he tried to angle Black away from the main room. "What we do is none of your business."

Black wouldn't be led. He stood his ground in the middle of the living room and instead pointed at Castle's chest. "I'm not talking about being out all hours, not anymore," he said icily, all control. "Kill her with it for all I care, so long as you don't blame me. No, son, what I'm talking about is the unholy fuck-up on your chest."

Heat flared in him again, anger vying for dominance. But it was a childish anger, it was the little boy again, and Castle was determined to be over that. He drew himself up and stepped into his father, but he didn't touch him - he only made a wall. He pushed forward and Black reluctantly gave ground, unwilling - it seemed - to be in close contact with the mess of plastic and vaseline covering the black ink on Castle's chest.

Castle paused in the kitchen, kept his voice down, kept himself under control. He had to be rational; he had to protect her. He assumed a sardonic note and put his hands on the counter behind him, shrugging. "It's a tattoo. It's permanent. Try to keep up."

"You got a tattoo," his father hissed. "Are you completely insane?"

"I'm not insane. I'm finally free of this - all of it. And yes, I'm reconciled to the regimen, so you can stop blowing up at me. That's a done deal. I've seen what happens when I can't be there for her like she needs."

"Finally _free_ of it? You've achieved some kind of enlightened voodoo experience? What the hell are you talking about?"

Castle actually felt - for the first time - pity for his father. Who couldn't even begin to comprehend what it was to love, to have a relationship with someone that informed and supported and held up his whole being. "It's not mystical. It's a tattoo. It's a reminder to never take her for granted, take our _lives_ for granted. A way to brand it in on my skin so that I never forget what's been done here, what the cost is."

Black's face twisted. "Spouting poetry - your one true love - all that bullshit? That is not the life I chose for you. A fucking idiot of an artist like your mother? You are better than this."

Castle swallowed down the insult to his mother, a woman who hadn't deserved this either, and he tried a different tack. "Black, it's a memento. Besides, you have a tattoo. What does it mean to you?"

"Failure," he snarled back, advancing on Castle. Black stabbed his son with his fingers right against the fresh ink, but it did nothing at all; didn't move him, didn't hurt. "It's a fucking failure, the whole Army project, and worse - _worse_ - I left my entire team to protect you. I left all of them to work solely and only for you. Failure. I see that damn Army tatt and it's fucking worthlessness."

"Worthless," Castle echoed. "Well, not for me. I didn't choose this legacy of yours, and even if I have to have it, I still don't choose the program. I choose this - my family. Because she is more, because she makes me more. Because it's for all time; it cannot be removed. Just like the ink."

"Oh, ink can be removed," Black said, deadly, calm leaking back into his voice. "We will get it laser-"

"There is no we," Castle sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. "No team. No program. There just isn't. And I don't know how to make you understand. Kate said it was a rebellion thing - trying thwart your authority over me from the time I was a kid. Maybe it is. Fuck, maybe it is. But nothing I say, nothing I do seems to make you understand."

Black plowed on like he hadn't even heard. "Identifying marks are the _first things_ we drill into your heads in Langley. They make you - they break you, son. Break your cover, give the enemy knowledge. They mark you as a man instead of a myth, and they bring your deeds back on your head. You're no mere mortal, you are a _superman_."

"I don't know what I am," Castle hissed. "You made sure I was crushed into your small box for me, caged. But whatever it is, I'm my own, my own, making my choices good or bad." Castle slapped his hand over his chest at the ink, felt the slick of plastic and the sting of the his own palm. "My choice."

"A damn foolish choice. Which we will fix."

He took a breath to stop the next words that wanted to come, made himself really think first, made himself get some distance. He wanted this man gone. He wanted to never lay eyes on his father again, and that would be too soon, but he knew that his son's future, Kate's, rested on his next words. How he said, what he said, what he implied.

"Kate thought to make you understand," Castle started. "She's a good person, she really _cares_. Even - maybe even for you, on some level."

At this, Black snorted, but he closed his mouth, he closed his mouth and he turned his eyes away. Castle wondered if words could even reach the man any longer. But he loved Kate, and he loved his son, and he would try. Fuck it, he would try and then, if that proved worthless, he would just cut out the cancer.

"She thought we could make you part of this, part of _our_ plan, our team," he said quietly. "You know about Stone Farm and what they're trying to do for us. You know, and yet you keep your hands around my neck, twisting the life out of me. You try to throttle every good thing. And it's Kate or it's my rebellion or whatever it is - we thought, here's our son. Here's how we bridge that insurmountable distance, that gap between what _we _want and what _you _want. But it's not working."

"Not working. How can it when you won't even let me _see_ him?"

Castle blinked. Black didn't look at him, just turned his back and headed for the open doorway and the bedroom beyond. Castle didn't try to stop him, didn't know what he could possibly say to that. If it was within Castle's power, Black would _never_ see their son.

"And do you know why?" he called out. Black stopped just at the closed door to the bedroom. Castle came in close to keep from waking Kate. "We can't trust you. We _love _him. But you don't even understand love, what it can do, what power it is. You discounted it long ago, gave it up, even with me. I would have - I did, you know." Castle furrowed his brow, hands in fists at his side. "I used to, at the start. I thought - but you wouldn't consider it. And no, maybe not with Martha, I wouldn't wish you on her, but someone. Someone could have set you straight, untwisted you. You wouldn't be ruined if you-"

"Ruined?" Black croaked, a whirling fury starting up in his eyes. "She has ruined you. You used to _know how this worked _but now - now? - now you're reckless and irresponsible. You leave witnesses lying around, you take potshots at our only Collective asset, you run headlong into the abyss like it will never come back to you. But the work we do, if you act like that - if you fuck around - it will find you. Son, look at me. Take a long look. Your sins will find you. And they will ruin you as they ruined me."

"_I_ ruined you," Castle said. "I beat you and left you for dead because you tried to murder my wife. That is your sin. Not me. Not even the damn regimen, but _her_. You took all of everything I ever had, but you can't take this. This is mine. Forever. And _we_ are done. We are done. Not even my son, you cold bastard. Not even my son."

Castle peeled the plastic off the ink and let the cold air wash over the wolf on his chest. He turned his back on his father and moved to the bed that seemed to dwarf the living room, overwhelm his sleeping wife as well. She hadn't even moved from where he had placed her, and already he was shutting down, shutting it out, his father.

Black cleared his throat. "And that's it? Just like that."

Castle let out a desperate laugh. "I wish it were. God, I wish it were. But you don't seem to stop." He turned and looked at his father over his shoulder. "That's it for now. You get your stuff and you leave. In fact, Mitchell is a few floors up. You switch with him tonight - this morning - and make your own way home. Wherever it is you call home. We're done here."

Black stared at him, and Castle padded barefoot back to the bed. He took the phone - it happened to be Kate's - and he texted Mitchell the change of plans.

Slowly, he heard Black moving in the bedroom, gathering things, and Castle sank down onto the bed, closing his eyes, his hands braced on his knees. He felt Kate warm and safe at his back, deeply under, a healing unconsciousness.

He wouldn't sleep, but he would guard hers until they could leave.

It was done. For now. This was the end.


	5. Chapter 5

**Close Encounters 24**

* * *

><p>Kate jerked awake when the door slammed shut, but a hand fell to her back in reassurance. She blinked and lifted her head from the pillow, barely made out Castle sitting up in bed with her.<p>

"What's going on?" she said, shifting to get a hand under her.

Castle let her up, in fact, he outright helped her sit beside him, her muscles knotted and her mind still fuzzy with sleep. The place felt empty.

"Mitchell is escorting my father up to his place for the rest of our stay. Mitch will come back over here with us. Do you want me to push the bed back into the room?"

"We'll have to un-ass it anyway," she murmured, still absorbing the news. "You kicked him out?"

"Time for us to part ways."

She shifted to rest on one hip, her knees drawn up and touching his thigh. Castle was bare-chested, but the plastic was gone, the tattoo shiny with vaseline. "What did he do?" she asked, touching a finger to the grease and skimming over his sternum.

Castle flinched and shivered, caught her hand with a kind of breathless noise. It was too early in the morning for her to have any hope of hiding her smile, and he huffed at her, squeezing her fingers.

"What hasn't he done?" Castle shrugged at her and lifted to his knees, blocking the light that crept in from the balcony windows. She glanced up and he palmed the side of her head, heavy and a little clumsy.

His clumsiness wasn't because the super was wearing off, it was just because he was in love with her, because he wanted her, because she had teased him maybe a little more than he could bear. She'd missed that.

His finger and thumb played with her hair a moment before he stood up, leaving the bed. "You gonna ride like a queen, Beckett, or are you gonna get out of bed and help me push?"

"There better not have been a comma between Queen and Beckett."

Castle went blank for a second, the joke going completely over his head, and then he caught on, laughing. "Alright. I see how it is, your highness." He kicked at the feet of the bed and she heard something click, and then he lifted his head and grinned at her, wickedly. "Hang on, babe."

She clutched the bedsheets, her feet flat on the mattress and knees pressed together for balance. Castle got behind her at the iron frame of the headboard and her whole body rippled with awareness at how close he was.

Then he shoved, and the bed practically sailed across the wooden floor. Castle pushed and the bed actually slid - smoothly, easily - so that she glanced down and laughed, noting the rolling casters on the ends of the feet. "It has wheels?"

"Yeah," Castle grinned. "The whole bedroom is done like this. I think the couple who rents the place was going for the psychiatric institution vibe."

"Wait, institution?" she laughed. "I don't wanna go in there!"

As he pushed, she saw that someone had already angled the couch halfway into the living room - probably Mitch had done that. The noise of Black's forced departure had apparently dragged her out of a heavy sleep, though it had been the door closing that had shoved her awake.

"Too late, babe. We're committed - haha, see what I did there? committed? - plus we need our privacy."

"Oh, we _do_?"

"Mitch snores."

She laughed and tilted her head back to look at him; he stopped them halfway through the bedroom door to drop a kiss on her forehead.

"You look happy," he murmured.

She shrugged. They were going home. She didn't feel like she was dying. Lots to be happy about.

"Should've kicked Black out sooner," he said.

She reached up and caught the edge of his shoulder, squeezed that bulging, flexing muscle. "You did just right," she told him. She leaned her head back on the iron of the bedframe, watched the morning light wash his skin in sweet blue. "You did exactly right, Castle."

He didn't say anything, just pushed the bed back into the room where it belonged.

* * *

><p>When the last tattoo session was over, he walked back to the apartment with Kate holding his hand, and the feel of her fingers around his reminded him of the wolf.<p>

It was no bigger than the shape of her hand, a little bigger than her palm really, and it was burned straight over his heart. It had finally begun to hurt, only a few minutes into the buzz of the electric needle against still-irritated skin. It wasn't what he would call pain, but he had to resist the impulse to scratch.

That _would_ be pain. He'd done that already. Mistake.

"I can hear the plastic crinkle as you walk," she chuckled.

Castle was arrested by her sudden comment, and when she stumbled into him, he realized he could hear it too. The squish and slide of plastic wrap over the vaseline coating his chest. He did a few experimental twists of his torso, shrugged his shoulders, and it squelched.

"Sexy," she laughed - no, _giggled_. She giggled like that when she was tired; she was adorable. And she'd punch him for saying it.

"So sexy, right?" He directed Kate to a shortcut through an alley, going behind a tall, fairly modern apartment building and a practically medieval women's shelter. "Greased up, just like you like me."

She was silent but when he glanced over at her, she'd wrinkled her nose. Though a faint curiosity lingered in her eyes.

File that away. Wasn't professional to lust after his partner in the middle of the day in Cologne when they had a mission to complete. Wasn't _right_ either, not when she couldn't walk in a straight line and she spent most of her day sleeping.

Didn't quite stop him. Now that home was on the horizon, now that her waking hours were spent pushing to get better, now that the two of them were alone and in close contact more than they had been since a cave in Russia.

Last night, in the absolute middle of the night, she'd talked his ear off.

Practically.

For _Beckett_, she'd talked his ear off. Conversation had gone around and around, in and out of stories, memories, jokes, teasing, their past, her father, even aspects of the regimen. That was their intimacy, their connection, and even if it wasn't quite as intense as having her, it was an entirely different kind of having.

"You got quiet," she said. "Where we going?"

"I want to show you something," he shrugged.

The alley cut-through opened up onto a brick lane that paralleled a brewery. Kate gripped his hand and inhaled, her chest rising and falling in his peripheral vision.

"Beer? That's just mean," she muttered. "You know I can't have any."

He groaned and released her hand to catch the back of her neck, tugging her into a side-hug. "Not a beer, exactly. Past this."

The brick lane zig-zagged and suddenly they came upon a crowd of mid-day people, jostling and talking, walking generally towards the same wooded area that Castle was trying to steer Kate towards. His wife squeezed his hand and came in very close; he glanced over his shoulder and saw the ripple of spatial sense on her face.

"Panic attack?" he asked. Stupid. He should have thought of that. Ten days cooped up with just him, sometimes Black, sometimes Mitch or Hunt, and a crowd like this was going to be riddled with triggers.

"Not yet," she said honestly. Her smile was crooked but still there. "Let you know if I do."

He nodded and chose a path of least resistance, avoiding knots of people, tangling his fingers with hers so that she kept coming in too close and stepping on his shoes. He didn't mind. They made their way to the center, trees growing up around them in orderly rows, manicured and planted to obscure clusters of tables and a long, open bar.

"Beer," she said. "This is-"

"A beer garden, yes. But they have things _other_ than beer."

Kate sighed and pressed her chest to his back. They had to stop and wait in a line of people to get a table. She dug her chin into the top of his shoulder, her voice practically inside him. "But _you_ could order a beer and I could have a sip."

He smiled, turned his head a fraction to kiss the corner of her eye. "In celebration of my new tattoo, I'll order whatever beer you want."

"I love you," she sighed.

He laughed and it was their turn through the gate. He pushed forward and Kate came with him, letting him lead them towards the far back, away from the crowds, where they could have some peace. They could eat here, let her rest for as long as she needed, even drowse in the shade after their beer.

The leaves were shifting overhead, the April air was cool but the sun came dappled and green down over their heads and warmed their skin. Castle sat on the same side of the table as his wife, their thighs pressed together, shoulders bumping, and Kate reached out and gingerly patted his shirt.

The plastic crinkled and she laughed, eyes flying to his to share the joke.

It was done. Final. He was marked. And they could enjoy an afternoon lunch in the sun now that the week was being laid to rest behind them. Things happened, things had happened and it had been traumatic for everyone, but this was a new day and she was alive.

Kate put a kiss on his jaw, that strange remove of his scruffy beard between them, and then she laid her head on his shoulder. "Order me a brat. If I fall asleep."

Castle laughed, lifting his hand to palm the side of her head, nudging a kiss into her hair. She smelled like lemon and sage grass from the incense burning in the tattoo parlor this morning. He took a deeper breath, and she hooked her fingers at his bicep and seemed to settle against him.

She looked like she really would fall asleep.

That was fine; he would wake her for the beer.

* * *

><p>"You sure about this?" Mitchell looked her over, but Kate stood her ground.<p>

"I can do it," she said. Kate glanced into the bathroom mirror to see what he saw: jeans, a too-thin white t-shirt that Castle had washed for her in the sink. Maybe why Mitch was looking at her like that, his arms crossed over his chest as leaned against the open bathroom door.

"In and out of the truck?" he asked.

"I can do it. Castle will be back there with me."

Her husband appeared in the bathroom doorway at that moment. "I'll be back there with you. But add some layers, Kate."

"I am," she promised, only slightly put out by the mothering. She had stolen his plaid shirt and it was hanging behind the door. "Mitch, move."

Mitchell stood up straight and she pushed on his hip to get him out of her way; Mitch jostled for space with Castle and suddenly the narrow bathroom was filled up with bodies. She pulled the plaid shirt from the hook on the door and stuck an arm through the sleeve.

"She can do it," Castle said to Mitch, but they were looking at her like maybe they didn't know.

"It's - at most - two hours," she said. "I can get through two hours in the back of a truck."

"Refrigerated," Mitchell stressed again.

"I want to go _home_," she hissed, poking her finger at him. "I can do anything for that."

Castle must have seen something in her face because he was muscling Mitchell out of the bathroom and then shutting the door on their friend. He leaned against the closed door a moment and then straightened up and brought his hands to the buttons of the plaid.

"No, leave it-"

"Refrigerated," he murmured. His fingers, despite how broad and thick, despite how they dwarfed those buttons, handled the job deftly. She felt the sense of him between her breasts and lifted her chin to meet his eyes.

"It's a drive through the city," she told him. "A drive to a _cruise_ ship."

"Boat," he amended, lips crooked. Trying to smile. "River cruise."

"I feel a little spoiled," she hummed.

"You lie," he chuckled.

No. She really did feel spoiled. Eleven days now, eleven days without her son. Five of them spent dying. The rest broken up onto either side of that. Long enough to be restless and just strong enough to feel how weak, how entirely incapable she was.

If James were here now, she wouldn't even be able to hold him. He was too busy for her; he'd squirm and fall out of her arms. She wouldn't even be able to feed him.

"Hey," he murmured, tugging on the lapels of the plaid shirt. "You ready for this?"

"So very much," she husked.

Castle hooked an arm around her shoulders and drew her against him, lips brushing her cheek. "I'll be in the back with you. Mitch will drive us to the dock; he'll open the back and we'll 'help' unload onto the riverboat. We'll stay onboard and he'll leave us there."

"You said it was capsized?" she murmured. He was reaching for the sweatshirt hoody also hanging on the back of the door.

"No," he laughed. "Small collision. Had to be repaired here in Cologne - cargo ship capsized. It's taking provisions and foodstuffs, a few staff here, and then heading straight for Lucerne, Switzerland. We'll get off there."

"Lucerne," she sighed. "New captain, right?"

Castle snorted and tugged the hoody on over her head, the material catching at her ears. He pulled it down and she opened her eyes and he grinned. "You looked like James for a second."

Her heart tripped. "Yeah?"

Castle had gone still; he held himself perfectly quiet, waiting on her reaction. It made her sad.

"You can - talk to me about him," she said. "I know you miss him too. You probably should've gone back days ago-"

"No."

She didn't try it again; she hadn't wanted him to leave without her anyway. They both saw straight through that lie. "He likes to wear that shirt with the tie that Ryan gave him," she started, felt the words halting in her mouth. She fiddled with the hem of the pullover as Castle straightened it up.

"He likes it because he chews on the tie all day."

She grinned, tilting her head to look at him. "Yeah. It's stained on the bottom."

He grinned back, and the image of their son was so vivid with them there that it was like they could touch him. It was only a moment, a rubber-band of a moment stretching the bounds of time, and then it snapped and disappeared and Kate leaned into Castle and buried her face in his neck.

She breathed, and he held her, he just held her, and she tried not to lose the image of him, her son.

She felt shaky and weak and yet, with that vision in mind, she could do anything. She sucked in a fortifying breath and lifted her head. Castle's eyes were kind, she thought stupidly, and he stroked the still-damp hair back from her cheek like she was something precious.

So was he. Kate wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug, squeezing, and then let him go. "Let's get to stowing away, Castle."

* * *

><p>She'd fallen asleep in the back of a refrigerated truck that had bumped and ground its gears through a busy city. Castle had been forced to wake her when the truck got into the loading bay, and then he'd had a panicky moment where he'd been afraid she wouldn't wake at all.<p>

But she had, and he and Mitchell had gotten her onboard, and then they'd unloaded the rest of the crates and boxes in the short hold. Mitchell had left with the truck and when Castle had gotten back to Kate in the dark, close confines of their berth, she was asleep.

He sat with her on the narrow bunk and watched over her sleep while the boat rode high in the water, still taking on staff and cargo for the expedited trip on the Rhine. No one bothered to check all the staff quarters, and this small berth would go unnoticed until they did a major cleaning in Lucerne's port.

But he and Kate would be gone by then. He had a bag stuffed with provisions, food and ammunition, a few extra clothes, but they were wearing almost all they had. Castle kept his weapon holstered but at his back, under the zippered sweatshirt, and he had to sit with his elbows on his knees in the close space.

The riverboat's prow angled sharply here; he'd have to remember that in the middle of the night if they got up to go to the bathroom.

When the sounds of embarking finally dissipated, Castle laid down on his back beside Kate, keeping his body between hers and the locked door. The room was silent but the water was loud against the hull, and he turned his head to study his wife.

She really wasn't up for this.

But he hadn't the heart to tell her no.

She was still asleep twelve hours later when the boat docked at Lucerne.

* * *

><p>"You should've woken me," she grumbled. "I'd have done my Titanic impression."<p>

"What?"

She flung out her arms. "King of the world!"

"Shut up," he laughed, catching her hands and drawing them down. "You're attracting attention."

She smiled back and let herself lean in heavily against him. They had disembarked at Lucerne in the darkness during a general boarding for early-arriving cruise passengers. Now they waited at the train station, part of the cover, a handful of tickets to various locations, bought under a variety of her and Castle's aliases.

It was a beautiful city; she'd never been before. She wished she had the energy to stand up and walk around out there, the narrow homes crowding the river, the strasses and the walds and the - she couldn't remember the word for their trolley cars.

Her mind was slow this evening. They were supposed to be subtle but if someone clever was looking, they'd see them here in the train station. The Collective, Castle expected. The Collective would be the only group dedicated enough - knowledgable enough - to figure out what it was they were looking at and who they were looking for.

Castle had shot Diane Jolin. Beckett had missed that somehow. He'd said something about it this morning in the truck and the shock of it had ripped through her like stolen breath. He had shot Jolin.

"In the knees," he muttered to her now.

She startled. She could have sworn that had definitely not come out of her mouth. She was just so tired. It was so hard to keep her head up and it would for sure attract attention if she fell asleep. If Castle had to slap her cheeks to wake her like he had in the boat. He had said, _I didn't know if I could wake you._

She couldn't attract attention. The Collective really would be looking for them, this man who shot their lead researcher.

"Just in the knees, Kate," he sighed.

"I wasn't accusing."

"She was in the hospital when we left. She was recovering."

"I shot Saber in the knee," she whispered.

He squeezed his arm at her shoulders and she wriggled against the hard bench inside the train station, trying to get warm, comfortable, trying not to be too comfortable though.

"Don't let me fall asleep."

"You shot Saber to save my life. Well, I did the same to Jolin."

With the same amount of justification behind it as well. "I promise I'm not judging," she said. "If it feels like I am, or looks like I am, it's just because I'm exhausted and kind of - I kind of ache all over."

Castle sucked in a breath.

She shifted again on the bench, the bones in her ass rubbing painfully against the wood. "I only tell you that in the interests of our honesty policy. And because maybe when we have to get up again, I might fall over."

"You can't fall over. The Collective - they're the ones we're doing this for. If you fall over, they'll know something was wrong, they'll know you're - you're affected. They will make assumptions about you and the regimen just like Jolin did."

She pressed her body against his, quieting him with the pressure. He fell into silence but she could feel the hard thump of his heart, racing to beat the consequences of their ill-advised trip.

She wasn't up for this. She had known it yesterday, but she'd deluded herself into thinking that self-will alone would get her through it. Self-will and a super spy husband.

"I won't fall over," she told him. "Just - being brutally honest."

"I have a protein bar in my jacket. Will you eat it?"

She hadn't eaten anything quite so _dense_ in days. "I could use some coffee," she countered.

Castle scowled.

"There's a vendor right over there," she nudged. "Coffee with all that fattening cream."

"Fattening cream," he echoed, perking up a little.

"Get me the venti. Biggest size they have."

"That's trenta."

"What?"

"New size. They just - it's thirty in Italian. Thirty ounces. I think technically thirty-one, but whatever. Thirty ounces of coffee."

"Oh, fuck me," she swooned. "I would really _adore_ thirty ounces of coffee right now. Castle, baby, get me that."

He let out a completely unwilling laugh - it sounded more like a grunt against her ear at his chest, but he did start to move her off of him.

Coffee wouldn't do a damn thing to make her feel better right now, but pretending would be good for them both.

And coffee did sound heavenly. Something normal.

Castle eased away from her and she drew her knees up into the wooden seat, leaned into the corner and watched as he walked away. He'd left their bags below the bench, and the wide open space of the main gallery echoed with noise.

He kept looking back at her on his walk; she motioned she was okay, their familiar hand-signal in the field, and he finally stopped long enough to get in line.

Kate closed her eyes and focused on breathing. She had to remind herself to inhale; the air just kept going out and out, so easy, but it was such effort to bring it back in again.

Inhale. Breathe.

She had to.

* * *

><p>Kate was struggling hard when they left the train station just as their train came in. Instead of boarding, they slipped out an access door and through the maintenance alley that ran between the tracks, walking in abject darkness with only a small torch. Now that they were away from the cameras, Castle went at a slower pace, trying to aim the flashlight back for her, trying to be attentive to every step.<p>

"I gotta stop," she wheezed.

He froze immediately, waiting while she leaned over with her hands on her knees and sucked down air. He laid his hand on her back after a moment, the light from his phone glowing blue in the dank air. The maintenance shaft wasn't completely camera-obscure - they couldn't stop long.

"Kate, let me carry you."

"You need to see where you're going," she rasped. Her breathing sounded bad. She was too exhausted for this; he had thought the three hours of rest in the train station would buoy her. He had even hoped that the small amount of coffee she had drunk would give her the energy to get through this part.

She wasn't ready for this.

"I can carry you on my back. We did it before."

"Not sure I can hold on," she muttered.

"I'll hold you."

"You have any rope?"

He huffed, not really amused, but she was trying. She really was. "I can carry you on my back - you won't fall, even if you pass out. I'll be holding on."

She lifted a hand to him and he took it, drew her upright and into his arms. She leaned on him, draped practically over his chest, wilting. He felt his heart beating hard in his ribs, struggling up to meet her own, the wolf burning at his skin.

"Come on, Kate," he said sharply.

She jerked to her feet, swaying, clutching his arm. "I'm awake. I'm here. I - should let you carry me."

He turned and squatted down, offering his back, his fingers around her wrist to draw her forward in the darkness. She shuffled, her foot hit a metal trellis and the sound clanged down the tunnel, but her arms snaked around his neck.

He had hold of her wrist still, and he half-rose. She came up with him, and now her right leg lifted and hooked at his waist, but she couldn't seem to get her left up with it.

"Promise me you're just exhausted," he said. "Promise me it's not a relapse. Promise me you'll keep breathing."

"Promise," she panted in his ear. "I'm sorry, God, I'm sorry. But it's just - I'm so tired, Castle. I didn't know it would be this bad."

He could handle that. A relapse meant she'd slip into a coma and he'd mistake it for just exhaustion and she'd crash and her heart would fail and he had _nothing_ with him to help her except one last vial of the infusion from James - which was useless if she was dying. It would only help repair.

"When we get to Milan," he told her. "Kate? Kate, listen to me."

"I heard, I heard. Milan."

"We have a short flight, honey. When we get to Milan, I'll start the saline IV and you'll take the last of the infusion."

"Yeah," she said, her words thick. "That will help."

"Better," he muttered, but now he'd gotten her other leg up. "I'm letting go of your wrist, Kate, so I can tuck my arms under your thighs. You got it?"

"I got it." Her arms tightened nearly imperceptibly around his neck.

He let go of her wrist and quickly wrapped his arms at her legs; she squeezed his hips, but she was off-balanced, rocking back.

"No, no," she muttered, a panicked note in her voice. "Won't work. Castle, I can't-"

He let go, caught her wrist again before she could fall. Her heart was beating so hard he could feel it shaking her whole body.

"How about this?" he said, thinking fast. "Tuck your foot behind your knee, right here at my hip. I'll hold up your left leg, that should support you."

"Don't let go of my hand."

"I won't, I won't," he said, shifting forward on his feet to test it out. "Does that wrench your knee?"

"No. Not too much."

"You sure? Because you're going to need it."

She laughed a little, breathless, but she nodded. "I'm sure. It won't wrench my knee. How long in the tunnel?"

"Maybe twenty minutes, carrying you like this."

"Okay," she whispered. "Okay, I can do that."

He got a better grip on her wrist, hiking her a little higher on his back, and he hoped to God he wasn't wrenching her shoulder out of joint either.

But there was nothing else to do.

Once she was settled on his back, Castle gripped her leg, tightened his hold on her wrist, and he started off down the tunnel.


	6. Chapter 6

**Close Encounters 24**

* * *

><p>With Kate slung over his back, Castle came out into the rail yard, darkness bleak across the tracks. He surveyed the moonless night and the trek they had ahead of them, the endless stretch of rail before the fence.<p>

He wasn't sure they were going to make it.

"Kate?"

She'd been in and out of consciousness for the last few yards of the maintenance tunnel. Her legs had kept falling from around his waist, so now that they were clear, he took a moment to reposition her, the bag bulky between them. She gasped and stiffened when he shifted his grip from her wrist to her upper arm.

"Cas-" Her voice cut off and her chin dug into his back.

"You okay?"

"I..."

Well, that was honest at least. She had no idea. When did she ever really know her own limits? She pushed because she had to and she usually made her body do more than it should. Still, he was counting on that. To get them out of here, he was counting on Kate Beckett doing what needed to be done.

So he just set out across the rail yard, heading full tilt towards the snarl of wire fence he could make out beyond the yard cars.

The empty boxcars stood on disused tracks, looming, casting deep black shadows across the yard. Gravel twisted loudly under his feet and he had to pay careful attention to the tracks, the wood, the tie plates, the signal posts. Whenever he had to lunge across the rails to keep his footing, Kate's breath left her in a tight, pained noise. Every jump made her rigid with pain, and he knew it; he could feel it go through her. When he had cleared the final track, she buried her face into the back of his neck and her teeth sank into his skin.

Fine. He could take it if she could.

Castle hurried in the darkness, avoiding the spill of light from the overhead security lamps, running along the side of the last rail towards the boxcar mechanic garages. Past them was the gated in the fence - there was no way she could climb that barbed wire top, so they had to go through the gate.

Kate rolled her cheek against his back and panted. "Arm. My arm," she husked. "Castle-"

He stopped, leaned over to support her weight with only his back, and then he released her wrist and caught her higher up, closer to her shoulder.

Kate gasped, and he let go immediately, sliding to his knees, releasing the pressure on her shoulder joint. "You arm?"

"Killing me," she growled, bowing her head.

"Kate, we have to-"

"I can - walk," she said. "How far?"

He didn't doubt that she'd _try, _but he wasn't sure she actually could. "We've got to go through the yard houses and out past the fence. We'll catch the bus after that."

"Bus? Thought plane. You said a nice ride." She was gulping each breath, struggling to find some kind of reserves; he could see it on her face, _see_ her struggling.

He bit his lip to hold back his stifling, suffocating concern. Wouldn't do either of them any good to baby her right now. "Yeah, honey, a nice ride, but the plane can't pick us up in the rail yard."

"Oh." She shivered suddenly and drew her arms slowly in against her chest. "I know. Knew. I knew that. I... should walk."

"Can you?"

"My arm hurts," she whispered. Too much to stay on his back like that, she meant.

From yanking on it, holding her up, he might have strained the joint. Castle held her crouched at his side, wrapped his arm around her back. She still hadn't gotten to her feet, still on her knees.

"Kate, can you?"

"Yeah."

"You can sit on the bus. Sleep, even."

"Yeah."

He thought that meant _shut up and let me concentrate_. So he went quiet, waiting on her, and felt her push her palm into the top of his thigh for leverage. Her hand was damp with sweat, but she got to her feet.

Castle rose fast to steady her, and she clutched his arm, so tightly her nails dug into his skin. He knew it wasn't nausea, wasn't just exhaustion - it was muscle fatigue. Her body just didn't have it left to keep going. Her limbs shook even standing here.

"Let's go," she husked.

"Kate-"

"Just _go_," she said suddenly, squeezing his arm. "Go, Castle, or I'll - never make it."

Castle slung his arm under hers, wrapped around her waist until their hips bumped. "You'll make it," he promised.

"Then go," she insisted. "Just - make me do it."

So he started to jog, pulling her along with him.

* * *

><p>At the gate, she dropped to her knees and gasped, but Castle, stupid man, crouched beside her and tried to make it <em>better<em>.

"No, Castle, just get it open," she croaked. He he had to do his job. Had to. This was the part where they couldn't be seen by the Collective's searchers, where it was vital that they not appear on any security footage, and if she had to kneel in the gravel and gasp for breath, then he had to damn well be the one to keep them going.

"I can-"

"Get the gate open," she growled.

"Yeah," he breathed and disappeared, thank God.

Kate let her strong shoulder hit the ground and then rolled to her back, knees drawn up so that her heels were at her ass, ready to... do something. What, she had no idea. She just needed to rest, her heart to stop beating like a crazy unsyncopated drum.

Better, already better. She was a little more awake. The air was helping, the wide open space over her head, the way the world had stopped tilting. The pain in her shoulder was a good kind of pain, the kind that reminded her she was alive, the kind to focus on so that it would keep her conscious.

She gulped another breath that tasted like coal dust and peat gravel, and then she heard the rattle of the motorized gate screeching, protesting being forced open. She grinned up into the cloudy sky and then Castle's face was over her, blotting out the view.

"Kate?"

"I'm good," she panted.

"Lie."

"Not entirely," she defended, still swallowing air as she spoke. "Help me up."

"We can't do this long-term," he warned.

"Just to the bus." A mantra in her head. She could make it to the bus.

Castle reached down and put his hands under her armpits like she was a child, hoisted her to her feet. Kate was damn determined to stay, to absolutely stay standing, and she managed it. But fuck if it wasn't easier to be forced to run, where momentum made up her lack, despite how very much it hurt.

Good hurt. She could do this. She was doing this.

He came at her side again and slung his arm around her waist, but she awkwardly pushed him away. "No, I - let me follow you?"

"We have to move," he insisted. "The bus is scheduled in nineteen minutes and the bus stop is almost a mile away."

Beckett reached out on her aching side and tucked her fingers in the waistband of his jeans, gripping. The night air and the darkness pressing around them was stimulating, the pain that pulsed whenever her arm was jerked forward - that helped too.

"Okay. I can do that. Fast as you dare," she said. Castle looked grim but holy shit this felt good. Okay, not _good_, but alive, alive, movement and outside and freedom and - home.

Heading home.

Castle made a disgusted noise and reached back, gripped her hand in his, lacing their fingers together. Dangerous and stupid, walking like that, hands together so that Castle had one less weapon for self-defense, but he was doing it anyway, wasn't he?

Well, she was up and walking when she had no business, and so they were both guilty.

Castle led her to the gate at a good clip, and they went through the crack he had forced open; she saw that he had put a piece of scrap metal in the bottom so that it looked innocent enough - just debris getting caught in the gate as the last man had driven out tonight.

He had to help her through the narrow space, angling her body and lifting that last leg, and she was feeling it now, the pitch of the earth, but she just breathed and walked, kept walking. With her hand in his, that thrum of anxious desperation that ran through him now jolted into her, and that kept her awake too, kept her walking.

She'd bruised her shoulder, that was clear. The contact point of ball in socket abraded whatever connective tissue was damaged, but it was remarkably eye-opening. Every breath was through pain, and the clouds overhead were shot full of starry light.

"It's not quite a mile," Castle said roughly. They'd come through the gate and had followed the gravel drive up towards the main highway, and now they were walking straight on the blacktop. "If I hear a car, I'm swinging you up in my arms and hiding us in the grass."

She nodded. It wasn't smart to walk the road, but she couldn't do the uneven terrain along the side. Compromise, and she'd try not to get in his way as they went.

"Kate?"

"I heard," she said instantly. "Just - breathing."

"Good," he rasped. "Good, just..."

She wriggled her sweaty fingers in his, reminding him she _knew_, she got it, and he let out a short little breath and kept going.

A mile. For her son who had cried for her, who had tried to give her a kiss on the video chat. For her husband who hadn't wanted to leave with the Collective combing the streets, who hadn't wanted to risk her uneasy health.

She could walk a mile for them. James was the left foot, Castle was the right. Just keep going. Don't let go. Keep going.

* * *

><p>When they stopped, her face was white as a sheet, white as the moon that wasn't in the sky.<p>

She was breathing, but she looked ready to faint.

"Kate?"

"Here," she replied - immediate and without a stutter. "I'm here."

They were standing just outside the ring of light that fell over the bus stop. The pavement was cracked here with age and weather and feet; she had stumbled over the last big piece and fallen into his back. But they were here.

"Forty-five seconds," he said, checking the timer on his watch. Every step was scheduled, and if the bus wasn't here when it was supposed to be, then the second stop in an hour and a half wouldn't be soon enough.

"Forty-five seconds," she echoed, leaning into him now. Her cheek came to his shoulder blade and he spread his stance to keep her weight balanced; he could feel the moist warmth of her chest at his back, the tight knot of her knuckles tucked into the back pocket of his jeans.

"Stay awake, Kate."

She startled and jerked upright, a rush of breath at his ear, and he turned his head and found her close, smiled at her as gently as he dared. But she nodded, serious; she understood.

He had to be hard on her until it was over. When it was done, she could collapse and he could panic, but until then they had to make it.

The Collective knew Kate was out here, knew that an agent - some kind of agent - had shot their doctor and fled the scene with another woman. They would have guessed that it would be related to the program, guessed not because of facts in evidence but because they wanted it to be true. That it _was_ true was the unfortunate part for them, and it meant that the Collective would be actively, doggedly searching.

They wanted what they assumed Black had. Perhaps the thrust of their investigation would turn now to a different track - towards this woman on a park bench, towards Jolin herself (and God help them if Jolin knew more than her skewed information, if she guessed the connection between Black and Beckett was another person entirely).

Jolin knew only that Black's creation had turned on him; she'd assumed it had been Kate who had done the turning, Kate who had been given an experimental trial version of the serum, Kate who was - augmented.

Not super exactly. No, super had never been in the Collective's understanding. They didn't know it worked in human trials - or had worked - just this one time, with him, with Castle.

Twice now, if he counted James. Which Castle didn't, wouldn't, James would not be part of the program.

The Collective didn't know Castle was out here, and super, but they knew _something_ was out here, someone knew about the program, and was protecting it. So what if they were looking for Beckett and Black, having no idea of Castle at all? They were still looking. They were looking and if they found him-

"Castle," she whispered at his back.

"Yeah?"

"I hear the bus."

Castle blinked but in that second, he heard it too, chugging diesel up the road and grinding gears to downshift as the hill flattened out. He threaded his arm through Kate's and drew her towards the light, the pole beside the road with the sign for the bus stop.

"Can you stand?" he said.

"I can stand. You have our bus passes?"

He handed hers back to her and she clutched her hand around the plastic card. Now she was a little more upright, straighter, and with her arm through his and her body huddled, she just looked like his wife chilled by the wind, a little sleepy-drunk in the too-late night.

"We're going to make it," she whispered, and the rest of her words were drowned by the sound of the bus's brakes screeching and hissing as it rolled to a stop before them.

"Here we go," he said.

* * *

><p>Beckett was sandwiched between his shoulder and the side of the bus, their seats so far back that they were jounced hard every time the bus hit a dip in the road. Kate was exhausted, but not passed out, because with each of those jolts, she roused and caught her breath, a hand coming up in self-defense.<p>

The third or fourth time it happened, he caught her hand and held it, and when she woke again, it was only to squeeze his fingers and shift in the seat, her head coming down to his shoulder.

The bus held only a few others making their way out of town, but he and Kate didn't stand out - everyone else seemed to have gone through long nights of their own. One woman near the front was obviously high, and the bus driver was splitting his attention between the road and her low-pitched crazy - an on-going self-talk that seemed harmless if distracting.

Castle kept his hand in Kate's and felt her mouth fall open, the drool collect on his shoulder, but he just slid a finger into his pocket and found his phone. When he pulled it out, he called up his schedule and checked the details once more.

The bus put in at Wiesbaden after a winding, long, many-stopped route southward through Germany. They could have gone on to Frankfurt, but there was a small airfield in Mainz just outside Wiesbaden that Mason's wife's family had connections with. Castle was avoiding CIA contact as much as possible, in the hopes of skirting both his own father and the Collective. He had a feeling the Collective had agents in numerous governmental institutions, so a private strip held by friends of friends was ideal.

After that, it was a flight into Milan. He wanted to divert them to Florence and a few nights' rest, give Beckett a chance to recover, let the extraction do its job - let her soak in the good stuff. But he had a feeling she wouldn't do it, wouldn't agree to a detour.

But it was working, his son's mitochondrial byproduct. It still made Castle uneasy, all the chemistry and shit going on without his clear knowledge. A science experiment was what it was, and he was fucking _done_ with experimenting on them. He'd offer up his own blood and body before allowing this kind of thing again.

In the past, Kate had been the one on top of this, her head filled with the details, but not any more. He had to know - know what the likely consequences would be, what might happen, and what it would do to her, to James, to himself. He had to know. He couldn't fucking stick his head in the sand just because he didn't like his father.

In fact, now that he was thinking about it, Castle actually had the dropbox link on this phone; he put in the username and encryption key, and it connected him to the documents and program details that they'd collected. The scanned Congo files were the bulk of it, as well as ongoing notes Kate had been making - theories and ideas based on her understanding. He lowered his head to start reading, to start this instant on catching himself up to speed.

At his side, Kate was heavy with sleep, alive, and he unconsciously timed her breathing to the rate of his reading, syncing them together until there was no difference, until they were one and the same.

* * *

><p>Beckett woke every time the bus made a stop. A town platform, a side of the road stand, a well-lighted bench. And every time she opened her eyes, Castle had his phone in one hand and her own fingers in the other, squeezing, like he was trying to imprint a rhythm onto her subconscious.<p>

Well, it was working, because she was still breathing, despite how utterly exhausted she was, despite the sinking pressure against her chest, like her ribs would cave in under the force of gravity alone. She had never experienced exhaustion like this before; it was scary how easy it was to just stop breathing.

But the drive was a series of jarring wake-up calls and the blur of engine noise, Castle's warmth at her side and the drying heater at her feet that made her sweat in all her layers. She coasted on the tide of sleep, riding a current that spun her thoughts in strange, looping circles, until suddenly, sharply, she smelled diesel.

Kate jerked awake and blinked at the dawn light streaking in through the dirty windows. The bus was belching smoke as it put into a station, and Castle's hand was on her knee, squeezing.

"You awake?"

"Yeah," she scraped out, trying to sit up. Her ribs ached on one side from being hunched over into him. Her shoulder was a dull pain that no longer helped keep her focused, only ached. "Are we there?"

"We're there," he smiled softly. "From here, it's either a motorbike or taxi. Can you-"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I can't ride. Can we take the taxi?"

He nodded. "We will. But it means the last of it we have to hike in over the fields to the landing strip."

Kate chewed on her bottom lip. "How long is it by motorbike?" she asked. The bus had rolled to a stop and was huffing and sputtering as the engine cycled down.

"Twenty minutes," he said, shrugging. "Just over the Rhein. The landing strip is close."

"Twenty minutes," she echoed. Twenty minutes with a vibrating engine under her, twenty minutes having to keep her balance and lean into the turns and keep her wits.

She had done it in Russia, and she'd been dying for days then too. So fuck it. "Okay, motorbike."

"You sure?"

"I don't want to attempt walking again," she admitted. Her legs just didn't seem to want to hold her up. She could stand, but when she looked out across the distance, the idea of picking up her feet made her want to cry. At least with the motorbike, she was sitting down.

"Motorbike it is. There are kiosks that rent them out right here at the bus terminal."

"Good," she rasped, nodding. "You take care of it. Get me a good one. I wanna race you."

Castle shot her a startled look, his eyes blue as ice chips and cracking. His mouth dropped and then his cheeks flushed as he realized she was messing with him. There was no way in hell she could ride her own motorbike. "Babe, we're doubling up."

"You're no fun," she murmured, entirely without conviction.

"Oh, it'll be loads more fun with your legs wrapped around my waist."

She smiled back at him for the effort, and then nodded to the mostly-empty bus over his shoulder. "Our turn to disembark, love. Get moving."

Castle tipped forward and kissed her softly, lips brushing lips, and then he stood up and held out his hand to her.

She took it, allowed him to do most of the work of standing her up, supporting her weight, and then he walked her down the bus aisle, his hands on her hips like he was crowding into her back, in love and clingy.

Going down the steep steps and getting onto the pavement was an exercise in concentration, but when she'd made it down, she thought she just might be okay on a motorbike this morning.

She was going to make it after all.

* * *

><p>"He's Mason's brother?" the man said, nodding towards the window where Kate could just see her husband.<p>

Their contact was a burly man with slow-blinking eyes, a flared nose, and Croatian so heavy that Beckett was forced to do the translating and explaining. Castle had installed her with their contact just inside the trailer-office alongside the landing strip while her husband rolled the motorbikes into the parking lot. A man would pick them up and take them back to the rental station at Mainz.

"He's Mason's brother," she said with a smile. "We love your sister. Marin's as good as gold. She baked him a birthday cake last year."

"Marin's a baker," the man said, a feral kind of grin. Though Kate could see a touch of ruefulness to the set in his eyes. "Cookies. She had these nut rolls with the sugar-cream sauce, you know of these?"

"We have something kind of like it," she said. Not exactly, but close enough. "I'll have to ask her to make some for me."

"I miss her nut rolls. You tell her. Yes?"

"I'll tell her," Kate smiled, hands pressed to the arms of the narrow wooden chair just to keep herself upright. She thought she was going to slip to the floor, concentrating on both her Croatian and the man's local dialect. Not German; she had no idea why he was in this country without even a hint of German.

Just then the door opened to the trailer and Castle brought in with him the sound of a prop plane buzzing in the sky. He nodded to her, then to the man behind the desk, and Kate moved to stand.

Castle took her hand and pulled her upright, his palm landing on her waist to steady her. "That us?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder at their contact.

He hadn't told them his name; they hadn't offered theirs. The only names exchanged were Marin and Mason, like currency.

"That is you," he said finally. His broad fingers tapped the desk and then he nodded. "You will tell her. Send some nut rolls my way, yes?"

"Nut rolls?" Castle asked, apparently having enough Croatian to know that much.

"Nut rolls. I'll tell her," Kate said with a smile. She turned back to Castle and nudged him towards the door, determined to walk out unaided. Castle took her hand and squeezed, holding open the warped plastic door, and she stepped out onto the hard-packed dirt.

She only wavered a moment, and then she lifted her hand to her forehead to shade her eyes from the dawning sun. The plane was coming in easily, a bird aloft and beginning to sink, and as it drew closer, it seemed to get faster and faster.

When the prop plane finally set down and rolled towards them along the runway, Kate took an involuntary step back.

Castle laughed and caught her, his hands on her hips and heavy, warm. She leaned back into his chest and closed her eyes a moment, shutting out the yellow-bright sun and the streak of the plane, listening to her own heartbeat in her chest.

Another step closer. Another leg of their trip completed.

Castle fingers came to the back of her neck, brushing her hair away, and then he kissed her behind her ear. "We're so close," he murmured.

Even over the sound of the engines, she knew exactly what he was saying.

"We're finally getting out of here."


	7. Chapter 7

**Close Encounters 24**

* * *

><p>There really wasn't any chance of Kate sleeping on the flight from Mainz to Milan. It wasn't just that it was a normal bumpy ride in a Robin four-seater, but a few minutes into it, the clouds began to leak rain across the windshield and even inside the open windows. They were flying low, and Castle couldn't see a thing, but he had Kate curled up in his lap on the bench seat and his movement was restricted.<p>

The pilot seemed capable. He had to believe that.

Kate had her forehead pressed to his thigh, one arm curled under his knee to stay close. He kept his hand on the back of her skull and stroked through her hair, more for himself than her, his eyes on the windscreen just beyond the pilot.

He was instrument-read, so at least it wasn't line of sight only, but the thick grey clouds and rain streaking in, the way the plane shuddered and jumped in the wind didn't make him feel all that confident.

They couldn't have come all this way only to perish in a damn wooden monoplane. Not after everything.

Kate didn't seem to know it was all that dangerous; she was in and out of it, heavily asleep one moment and then her body stiff with awareness, shifting with aches or maybe just that particular kind of weariness that pushed past comfort.

Castle finally closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the short seat, ignored the bumps and knocks of the little plane in rough weather. He listened to the sound of the rain streaming past the wings, the rush of wind across the silver body. Kate seemed to settle into something like sleep, one hand up to tangle in his at her neck, and the deep and regular lift of her chest in breathing settled him more than anything.

It was a short flight. Soon enough they were landing in a thunderstorm, complete with streaks of white lightning just past the wings and the crackle of the radio speaking warnings and instructions.

The plane didn't land so much as fling itself down on the pavement, and Kate gasped awake, half-sitting just as a clap of thunder shook the whole world.

Kate gripped his knee and jerked upright, but he put his arm around her and hugged, speaking right into her ear. "We're okay. It's fine. We've just landed in Milan. He's going to let the plane taxi and then we'll roll up inside the hangar."

"Okay," she croaked, her eyes still wild as she stared outside the windows at the thunderstorm.

"When we get inside, we wait for a moment. We let him unload whatever it is he ferried to Milan, and then we get off the plane and walk out of here."

"Okay," she said, her breathing coming a little easier now. She nodded and stiffened, straightening up, and Castle knew she was with him again.

He let go of her, drew his hand down her arm to circle her wrist. Kate let out a shivery breath and squeezed his arm against her side. She shot him a courageous smile and turned her eyes back to the storm outside, watching it as the plane rolled down the runway and towards the open hangar.

* * *

><p>At this point, he was tired of rain and thunder so loud it made them both jump, tired of being worried, tired of fretting like an old lady, tired of feeling the cold weight of his gun at his ribs in its holster.<p>

Tired of being afraid for them. He needed to sleep; he needed at least four hours, and he needed it badly, and she couldn't even stand up on her own.

"We're going to the Park Hyatt," he told her. He leaned forward and adjusted the lay of her coat, tugging it down to her hip. They'd walked to the covered stop for the airport shuttle, waiting here for the van. They had one bag between them - Castle was carrying it, of course - and Kate looked ready to fall over.

"Park Hyatt... that's like a thousand bucks a night," she muttered, eyeing him.

"Yup. About seven hundred euros."

"Castle-"

"I'm fucking tired and I wanna sleep in a bed that feels as good as sin, Beckett. So shut up and say, _yes, sir_."

"Like hell," she growled.

He grinned and she actually kicked her foot at him - but she had to grab for the pole and hold on to keep her balance. Castle laughed at her, surprised he was laughing, surprised it had struck him as amusing at all, but she giggled once and sent him a furious look for the laughter, scowling again.

"Park Hyatt, here we come," he called out to the day.

"Hush, you fool."

"There's no one here," he said, waving his arm across the empty field. He wasn't even sure the airport shuttle really stopped here any longer; they'd just walked straight out of the hangar and bummed a ride with a mechanic from the hangar next door. He'd dropped them here to get the shuttle that would arrive _at any moment_.

Italy was famous for its strikes. Could be all airport shuttle drivers were on strike this morning.

Be their luck.

"We're not going to the Park Hyatt. That's ridiculous."

"No one will look for us there," he said, leaning in to catch the pockets of her coat and tug her towards him. She stumbled and fell forward, her body slumping into his. She was so exhausted, and it ached in him, how she kept pushing and pushing, how she never complained - she just did it.

"It's a thousand dollars," she murmured.

"It's a massive bed, and the anonymity of the rich, and a jacuzzi tub. Those jets turned on high and we'll dump bubble bath in it and let it foam up to our chins."

She sighed against his cheek, tremulous, a woman wanting. He grinned and cupped the back of her head, kissed the corner of her mouth as he seduced her with luxurious thoughts.

"Room service, babe. Chocolate - oh, Milan has some good chocolate. And I want a huge, fat piece of lasagna for dinner tonight."

"Oh, God," she moaned.

"A glass of wine," he hummed. She could have a few sips of his; no way was he letting her have more, no matter how much she begged. "You'll be on the infusion, which sucks, I know, but in that big bed, with the pillows piled up and the duvet and the television on-"

"Can we watch Disney movies?" she whispered.

"What?" His fingers caught the tight knot of her pony tail.

"Disney movies. Anything - _Lion King_ or _Mermaid_ or _Aladdin_. _Aladdin_ is my favorite."

"It is?" he murmured, completely caught off guard. She'd never mentioned Disney movies before. "I don't think I've seen it. Any of them."

"We watched _Lady and the Tramp_ with James," she sighed.

"Oh, yeah. The spaghetti."

She laughed and her cheek tilted on his shoulder, eyes roving over his face. "Yeah, the spaghetti. And the Siamese cats. I loved that one when I was little."

"James seemed to like it. Especially those cats."

"He likes animals," she murmured. "He loves Sasha."

"Yeah, he does," he said softly. Kate didn't usually start their conversations about home, about their son. She always had to keep it tightly contained, walled off to protect her memories and her heart. He understood it, but he always felt better rolling around in memories, covering himself with thoughts of them.

Kate had closed her eyes on his cheek, mouth parted, her body heavy against his.

"Oh, is _Sleeping Beauty_ a Disney movie?" he whispered.

She roused and blinked up at him. "Sorry. I'm awake."

"It's settled. Park Hyatt tonight." And maybe another night, if he could convince her. Just stay and sleep, play some damn Disney movies until she forgot the last eleven days.

"I love-" she murmured. But the tail end of her words was cut off by the rumble and hum of a van on the lone road. Castle turned around and saw it approach, squeezed the back of Kate's neck to jostle her into awareness.

Kate stood up straight, hands in fists at her sides, taking deeper breaths; she looked ragged but only in the way of weariness, not in the way of misery. He hoped.

The airport shuttle began to slow; the driver had seen them and was stopping. When the door slid back and the engine idled, waiting on them, Castle turned to Kate and took her by the hand.

"Our chariot awaits."

* * *

><p>The Park Hyatt of Milan was just absolutely gorgeous. It looked like a palace, with its white columns and atriums, its gold ceiling and chandeliers - its massive arches and hanging flowers and wrought-iron lamps. The sheer space it had in the middle of Milan seemed outrageous itself, and when Castle led her inside the marble lobby, it took her breath away.<p>

A Porsche was being handed off to a valet, the man was following her and Castle inside the hotel. He had a briefcase, a three-piece suit, his gold watch was a Rolex. She felt conspicuous in her peacoat and jeans, but Castle walked like he owned the whole damn place.

She copied him; she was good at pretending, she was _good_. She was a spy, even if she felt like roadkill right now, and she knew that her sharp haircut accentuated her cheekbones, that the long day had rubbed out her eyeliner and made her look smoky, model-esque.

She thanked God for good genes and natural grace - and a husband who made her feel like a queen even without the Park Hyatt and a Rolex.

At the front desk, Castle reached into their bag and pulled out their passports and the credit card. She sneaked a look at the names just to remind herself, _Michael and Jasmine Wells._ Jasmine, there was a name to fit her severe hair and smudged make-up. Interesting. She didn't exactly remember him telling her their cover IDs for this part of the trip.

It was sounding like British businessman. His accent was really very lovely, and flawless, and sometimes, perversely enough, he reminded her of Colin Hunt.

How odd. They had the same build, though Castle's shoulders were wider - as wide as his father's.

Kate shook off her thoughts and did her part, standing separate from the proceedings, too good to put her hands on the exchange of money, her head turned away and looking bored. Castle handed her back the bag and she put it in the crook of her arm, hand up, eyes vacant.

Jasmine, his trophy wife, former model, long-sufferer - perhaps just out of rehab, an easy explanation for the gauntness, the pale skin, the tiredness. She would laugh but it would ruin her image.

The bag was heavy and she subtly put a hand under her elbow to help hold it up. All she needed was a cigarette and she'd feel just like Audrey Hepburn in a movie.

It took longer than it should have, but Castle only argued half-heartedly, as a businessman would being used to getting what he wanted quickly. And then they were following a bellman down the hall and _he_ was holding their bag, and Kate tucked into Castle's side and pretended she was both bored and disinterested.

She laid her head on his shoulder in the elevator; he cupped the back of her head and kissed her temple, promises in his breath skirting her cheek. _Hang on, babe._

At the door, the bellman unlocked it for them, handed over the packet of keycards to Castle, and waited discretely while Castle inspected everything. Kate sank to a chair inside the sitting room and watched the blue clouds out the window, her face averted.

She assumed Castle had euros to tip the man, though she had no idea from where, and the door closed and the whole act fell apart just that quickly.

She sank back, her head cradled by the high wingback chair, and she felt her unsteady breaths rattling in her lungs. Castle came and crouched before her, hands heavy on her knees.

"Kate. Bath first or should we do the infusion?"

She swallowed and opened her eyes. He was keeping it together, doing so well at being strong, being brave. She was impressed; she'd expected him to put his foot down long before now, to _make_ her stop, halt the whole thing. It was the only reason she hadn't pushed to keep going, to get back to her son.

"Infusion first," she answered honestly. "I don't think I can move."

He took her at her word and began taking the equipment out of the bag. She fumbled at the buttons of her coat, but he was there, doing the work for her, sliding it down her arms and easing it away from her. He threw the coat into the next chair, came back for the hooded sweatshirt, peeling it off her when it proved stubborn and Kate too tired to help. Castle tossed it aside as well and then unbuttoned the cuff of her plaid shirt.

It had been his, actually. His shirt. He rolled up the sleeve and stroked the inside of her elbow, thumb against her bruised vein.

"Maybe the other arm," he sighed.

She held it out limply, and he unbuttoned that cuff, rolled the sleeve to reveal the same bruises. Both arms were riddled with the dark marks of the last eleven days. Castle's head tipped forward and his face came to her lap, a stark moment of grief that made her heart clench.

But it was gone just like that.

Castle was standing up and putting his own coat over the back of the other chair, rolling up his sleeves to get to work. He started unwinding the tubing from their stuff, finding a bag of saline, then he moved to unpack the rest. The silver case came out and she watched in silence as he got everything set up.

He put the needle in the back of her hand where the veins weren't shot, cradling her whole arm in one of his, their bare skins touching forearm to vulnerable forearm, and his thumb brushed the crook of her elbow.

She did the same to him, and then she felt the infusion hit her blood like an actual thing.

A force.

Her chest expanded with a breath and she blinked, staring at Castle as he studied her every expression.

Their fingers explored each other's elbows, arms lying skin-to-skin, and she felt the strength of this man flooding her, like he'd opened his own veins to hers.

She breathed in again and he smiled, and her whole heart lit up with the radiance of his relief.

* * *

><p>"All right, you got me," he said. "This movie is the best."<p>

She giggled on top of his chest, the sound vibrating around in his ribs, and Castle rubbed his hand up and down her spine, grinning at the screen.

They were flat out on the massive bed - it was king-sized, or double-king-sized, and so they were lying the wrong direction - watching Disney movies one after another. The infusion had been done about an hour ago and Kate was using him like a body pillow, and it was perfect.

It was the best night he'd had in ages. He could even halfway pretend that he'd rocked his son to sleep in the next room and in the morning, he'd wake up and go get him, share an indecently large breakfast, let the kid gum on some scrambled egg or a piece of toast.

Kate giggled again. "Phenomenal cosmic powers."

Onscreen, the genie roared with the same line, his body stretched over an infinite space, and then in the next breath, he snapped back to the tiny little home of his magic lamp.

"Itty-bitty living space," the genie squeaked, and so did Kate, in that exact same voice.

And then _Castle_ was chuckling too, and the sound kind of went on and Kate was stretching her body against his, this long, cat-like thing that burst pleasure all along his skin.

"You feel good," he murmured, tucking the pillow under his head a little tighter to look at her. She smiled and wrapped her arms around him again, loose though, loose and easy, and she stroked her fingers along his bare chest.

"You feel pretty good too. Warm."

"Want a blanket?"

"No, no I'm perfect just like this," she hummed.

Her hair fell down her cheek and into her eyes and he lifted his finger and caught it before she could. She smiled at him, and he stroked it back behind her ear again.

"Don't forget to order your room service," she murmured. Her eyes were on the television, watching the beginning of _Aladdin_. They'd already gone through _Little Mermaid_ and part of _Lady and the Tramp_.

"I won't," he promised. But tomorrow. He wouldn't disturb her now for nothing, and she wasn't hungry yet.

"Bill's gonna be astronomical," she sighed.

"That's okay. Second honeymoon."

She giggled again, smile flickering up and away like a bird. "Not very sexy honeymoon. Do something about that later."

"No, you won't," he warned her, pressing his hand into her back a little harder. "I will, if you really want it, but you won't. You're not moving a muscle, Kate Rodgers."

"I believe the name is Jasmine. Oh, like Aladdin, that's sweet. You can be my upstart thief."

"I thought I was your genie," he muttered. "Rub my lamp and-"

She laughed, turning her head into the valley between this arm and side. "You're gross. This is a _children's_ cartoon."

"Yeah, and we both saw what was up with that priest marrying them in _Little Mermaid_."

She giggled again, sounding a little breathless with it, past exhaustion, and Castle scratched his fingers up her back and into her hair. She relaxed again, sighing against him, and conversation unspooled, their attention back on the movie.

Well, honestly, neither of them were really watching movies. Kate was recovering and he was memorizing every inch of her on top of him, alert for the faintest sounds, the slightest discomfort, but taking pleasure in each breath.

She was tired, so tired, but she wouldn't sleep yet, and he thought he understood. Before when she'd felt this bad and had fallen asleep, her heart had stopped beating.

That wasn't going to happen this time, hell no it wasn't, but it still lurked in both their memories. It would for a while.

Kate rubbed her cheek against his chest and yawned around a smile, and her eyes finally closed and she was asleep.

Heavy and warm over him like a blanket. Her hair soft at the back of his hand where he'd buried his fingers at her nape. Every breath made her shift slightly, his chest pushing up into hers, and it was good.

She'd been resisting it, afraid to go under - or maybe she had just wanted to keep him company. Now that she was asleep, he aimed the remote at the tv and clicked it off, rolled to his side and curled them both deeper into the bed.

She was substantial in his arms once more. Her presence took up space, felt strong enough to last forever, even in sleep.

That's how he knew her heart wouldn't stop tonight. That was how he could possibly let himself close his eyes and find his own sleep.

As stupid as it sounded, she was just entirely too _here_ to not be.

* * *

><p>He ate breakfast in bed, feeling like a schmuck for doing it, but he wasn't leaving her side. She was curled with her face to the windows, asleep even though they'd both slept the day away. The sunlight was murky this morning, blocked by clouds, and he figured he'd have to get the day started soon.<p>

Instead he pushed aside the tray and cradled a mug of coffee against his chest and stroked the fingers of his free hand through her short hair. He watched her breathing, rubbing the ends of her hair between his finger and thumb, and he wondered if James would noticed the difference in lengths.

When she woke, she'd want to get going, start the next leg of their trip. She'd want to get home. He wouldn't be able to convince her otherwise, even if she absolutely needed a few extra days to sleep. Recover. Pushing too hard too fast could mean long-term setbacks, more than just some exhaustion and tiredness. They were out of the infusion too, so maybe it would be better if they pushed on, maybe she was right in that.

He just wanted her to be safe. Home was safest, but getting there wasn't. It was all a tangle. It made him weary, carrying the load of responsibility for her - but not just her, everything she was central to. If she went down, so did their family, and James would be motherless as Castle had been and Jim would be swamped in grief at another loss and then there were their friends who were family too.

The price of connections, of having these webs around them, was the way it collapsed when one of them was gone.

He felt that responsibility on him now. Because she was his, because they'd done this together, gotten here together, because he loved her, because the regimen was something he'd brought into her life, fucking everything up.

And he was tired, and he didn't want to carry it anymore. He wanted to be some different person, a man on honeymoon with his wife, a regular guy, that accountant who had stood by his police detective wife during the trial - anyone who was not Agent Castle of the CIA.

He put the coffee down on the bedside table, deliberately, and he got out of bed to remove himself. As if he could walk away from the wound in his chest where his heart was.

Castle slipped out of the master suite and into the sitting room, breathing through the ache in his lungs, and he stepped up to the wide windows and stared down at the paved street. Cars passed and people walked by on the sidewalk. A pigeon strutted and flapped away, a child going to school with an older sibling just after, gloves tucked into pockets, not needed.

He told himself he was that person, that man striding across the street in a too-skinny tie and an artist's satchel in his hand. He'd have - he'd have first prints of a new series in there, hurrying them to a gallery for inspection. Critical reception. His wife still asleep at home after last night's long _good luck tomorrow, _her hair spilling across the pillow.

Even in his mind's eye, her hair was the short, modern cut that Kate had now, and not the longer, waving tresses he'd grown used to. Strange how that was. He must not want or need it any different than how it was.

The artist's wife would have roused right before he'd left, kissed his bottom lip a little messily, squeezed someplace she could reach for good luck - probably his ass - and he'd have left, surprised she hadn't groused about the tie. Flattening it out from its fall towards the mattress as he'd leaned over her in bed, where he'd wanted to be anyway. Smoothing it down his shirt, hoping to still look good, put together, excited about the prints in his satchel.

Guarding it like gold, hugging it to his chest on public transportation until his stop. He'd have been hurrying, late because of how she'd looked in bed and a need to write it-

sketch it.

Sketch it. In the story, he was an artist.

Castle turned his back to the window and moved towards the desk in the sitting room, tapped his fingers on the blotter. A pen was there, and he lifted a finger and rolled it towards his palm.

The need to write it, how she looked in bed, the shape of her cheeks in the sunlight. The paper was here too, he saw, opening the center drawer. A pad of hotel stationary, very expensive, a vellum or something heavy, and a watermark with the hotel's crest.

He took the paper and the pen and he sat down at the desk and stared at it.

And then his hand was on the page and the words were pouring out into the story and the woman was and wasn't his wife, and the man was and wasn't himself striding across the street, hurrying, about to be late because he'd been caught up in his art, in the need, the urge and itch to get it out of him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Close Encounters 24**

* * *

><p>Kate didn't realize she was awake - or maybe she didn't realize she'd been asleep - until she saw the curtain flutter in a breeze and the sun ripple across her face as a cloud scooted through the sky. It felt late, it felt very late, and the afternoon light had deepened to gold.<p>

She was warm under the covers and her body felt compressed into a small space, but it was good. She thought there was an ache leftover somewhere, something she couldn't get at, and she rolled over onto her back and into a full and dazzling amount of sun.

Felt good on her skin.

She opened her eyes again and studied the pattern of soft impressions on the far-above-her ceiling. The light fixture was brushed nickel and sedately gorgeous and it reminded her that she was in Milan, at the Park Hyatt, and her husband had spent an outrageous amount of money for her to sleep among a thousand pillows like Princess Jasmine herself.

She smiled and closed her eyes, hearing the sound of the street below them and feeling the light April breeze like it was some kind of balmy summer day. She wanted a beach or at least a walk down the street in the sunlight with her hand in her husband's.

And if she was dreaming, she wanted her cuddly boy against her chest as they walked, or maybe just in his father's arms, his own hands outstretched to the birds flying away from him, those grabby fingers, _mine mine mine_. That smile.

Kate smiled in it and opened her eyes again.

Her son wasn't here, but-

The duvet was piled up around her and she was sunk so far into the mattress and pillows that at first she didn't realize what she saw. And then she shifted her legs under the sheets and heard the crinkle and whisper of paper and she paused.

Castle was asleep in the chair beside the open closet door, his legs sprawled wide before him, and his mouth open against the wingback side. Paper was scattered across his lap, his heavy hands holding and pinning it to this thighs, an uncapped pen precariously balanced across his thumb, and pages were all over the floor, on the bed, right beside her.

Kate propped herself up on one elbow and reached for the thick, textured page.

She read_, lying among the lilies, the dark water_

_the heavy silt in the pond below_

and

_she finds a charcoal pencil and picks it up, adds it to his collection on the windowsill, smiling to herself because he's never going to realize he even lost it, never going to know she put all his supplies back together_

What had he been doing? His long scrawl, the shorter strokes of a hurried, hard-ridden hand, even the awkward loop of broken cursive filled the pages, and she began to collect them, each page, each story or poem or line, and she pulled them to her chest, catching fragments as she did.

_when the light dies-_

_He has a dark tie that lies like a narrow road between voice and gut. When he stands-_

_After a long time, she sighs-_

_"-don't let me forget," he begs. "I don't want to forget."_

Kate gathered them up in arms made stronger for the sleep but still weak, still without endurance, and as her body shook, she didn't know if it was bewilderment or panic or frustration, she didn't know if it was the poignancy of words or of not having them for so long, and she held them as tightly as she could.

He had stopped writing for her, these past few months. Life had been enough, she had thought; they had their son and he told James stories at bedtime, but he hadn't written his own stories down for her.

She had to get out of bed to keep collecting his pages, and when she lifted her head from the last one on the floor, she saw that Castle had woken up.

And was watching her.

"Let me have them?" she whispered.

Castle lifted his hands and she came to him on her knees, took the pages from his lap and pulled them to her chest, her eyes dropping to scan the words: _stay right as you are; I want to capture that look; no, don't do that, he laughs, and tries to look serious but she's sticking her tongue out and she is beautiful even in that and he thinks if I could paint her like that, and capture this beauty anyway, I would win the world._

Kate blinked and sank down on her heels, absorbing the words, the story that wasn't anything at all about a baby elephant or a spy in Marrakech. This was an artist - a painter or sculptor doing sketches - living his life with his muse sharing every moment of it, side by side, in bed or at the cafe table or down on the boardwalk.

"It's beautiful," she husked, lifting her head to him.

He was silent and watchful, like an animal who'd been betrayed before, and she knew that had been her doing. She'd ripped apart his wonderful journal to her and placed his stories like facts on her timeline, and she'd used those moments as plot-points to get her to Tunisia - and closer to Black. Closer to death, to Castle's way of thinking. She'd put her neck to the knife.

"I don't know what it is," he said finally, frowning down at his hands.

"Can I read all of it?"

"That's what there is," he sighed.

She nodded and held out the pages to him. "But - in order. I don't know... how it goes," she whispered.

Castle blinked and leaned forward, taking the pages from her in a clump, and she watched with her heart in her throat as he sorted them. When he seemed to be done, he held them still for a moment and she chewed the inside of her cheek, hoping he wouldn't take it back now.

He stacked the pages on his knee and straightened them up, and then he gestured to the bed. "You have to get back in bed for it," he said then. "Not on the floor, Kate."

She scrambled back up, tripping over a corner of the comforter that had dragged onto the floor and he caught her elbow, right behind her. When she was settled in the middle of those pillows like a queen, Castle sat at the padded headboard beside her and handed them over.

"I don't know why I wrote it."

"I don't need _why_," she said. "It's - good. I want to read his story."

Castle sat there a moment and then he seemed to change his mind entirely, getting out of the bed and standing at the side with his hands dangling ineffectually, staring at those pages. She pressed them to her thighs and pulled her knees up to her chest so he couldn't take them back.

"I can't watch you read it," he said hoarsely.

She wasn't sure she wanted to be watched. "Then - go." She thought for a second, her throat dry, the pages weighted on her lap. She needed to read. She craved it - a good story, something that said all the things she couldn't find words for. It was here, it was right here in her hands if only he would leave her alone and let her find it. The words that made everything clear again. "Go get us - dinner? I don't know. Just start walking."

He glanced to the open window and his eyes were the color of the sky, an exact and heartbreaking match.

She took in a breath, waiting.

Finally he turned to look at her. "You won't move from here?"

"I won't," she promised.

"Shouldn't take you long," he said, nodding to the pages in her hands. She didn't want to look down and distract him, make him rethink his decision. He stood there in consternation, obviously not sure he should leave.

"Rick?"

He glanced at her.

"This time last year. Do you remember-?"

"You got immunity," he said immediately. "And we went to Cyprus."

She nodded.

He let out a small breath and the corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. "Second honeymoon. You were pregnant. And I wouldn't let you in the hot tub."

She smiled back, wider than she'd meant to, but it was splitting her open, this need to make things right, to have it be right for him.

"Okay," he sighed. "Okay, I'm going. I'll..."

"Get me gelato," she said in a rush. "Mocha flavored. Do that?"

"Oh." His face brightened. "Yeah, I can do that." His smile was heart-lifting and she smiled back, still sitting in the middle of bed in his black t-shirt and her panties and the story on her lap.

He hesitated again, like he was caught in the middle, and she took a breath. "Please?"

Castle let out a breath. "Of course. Yes, of course. I'm going." He turned then and finally left the bedroom, and she was alone.

Alone with a story not even written for her at all, but a story that was hers just the same.

She slowly lowered her knees and read the first few sentences:

_The first time the artist sees her, it's across the street, walking away from him, but it might as well be across an empty room, so immediate is the connection._

_She is his, meant for him, every line easily translated into charcoal and pencil and imbued with her very essence. He draws her from memory that first night and it's her exactly, she is everything that is beauty and he is determined to have her._

* * *

><p>He walked.<p>

He found a place that sold gelato and he kept it in mind, but he mostly walked. Kate was reading that story about the artist and his muse, and while he didn't begrudge her the opportunity, he wasn't entirely settled about it.

She'd read everything else he'd written - the letters, the elephant stories, even the snatches of things he couldn't get out of his head. He'd written everything down for her - childhood memories, bad or good, the missions that had gone well and the explosive ones too, even the things he'd learned from his failed relationships.

This was different, this one was immensely different. Writing a narrative about a spy's experiences in Russia was nothing. Writing about a man who used paint and ink and pencil to get the world out of himself and onto canvas - that was different.

That wasn't about Kate, for one, even if she was and wasn't the wife in the story. It was a love story, so it _was_ about Kate, but it was the artist's love story, not Castle's. Elements would stay true, because their story was true, but it wasn't even his, it wasn't even - it was something that had _been_ there, and he had to get it out.

God, he was going to crack up. He had to ignore it somehow, forget that she was currently reading more than his heart upstairs - she was reading his soul.

She _had_ his heart. If that was all it was, it'd be nothing at all, just a hint of shyness at having it pumping and messy outside of his body. But his soul... a dark thing, streaked through with light where the love had managed to shine, a thing not fit for outside.

Castle went back to the gelato place - it was just a stand set into a pink marble wall. The window folded down with a metal screen at night, but they were doing a brisk service to tourists right now.

He stood in line and studied the flavors and options, and when it was his turn to order, he used his good Italian to ask for a whole container of mocha, slipping into the accent and idioms of Florence, a Firenze man in Milan. The man behind the counter had a cousin in Florence, just Castle's luck, and so proceeded to ask after streets and places he'd visited recently _have they finished renovations on the fountain?_ and Castle talked, working to keep the tension out of his shoulders.

The gelato maker had done him a favor. By the time the conversation was done and Castle had promised to look up the cousin when he went 'home' to Florence - a kiosk in the square, a man who sold miniature Duomos - enough time had passed that Castle's panic had receded and his heavy acceptance had settled.

He carried the tub of mocha gelato through the streets and back to the Park Hyatt Milano, stepping through the doorman-opened doors and inside the marble and gilt arches of the lobby. The air was pleasantly cool and all manner of employees bowed at the neck towards him as he passed; finally it came to Castle's mind that perhaps he should buy them nicer clothes, clothes that blended in with the clientele of this hotel.

He should have thought of that.

Their traveling cover required it, no less. He'd ask Kate to be sure, but she needed a dress, something from a private boutique here in Milan, something upwards of three hundred euros at least, while he required dress pants and the kind of dress shirt that most men would never lay eyes on, let alone have the money to afford.

And then a first class flight home. Whether he could convince her that home was Florence for now, and rest, or all the way back to New York - they were flying first class.

As he stepped into the elevator and pushed the button for the fifth floor, he made plans to get those things accomplished soon.

And then the doors opened and he was already here, and he had to face whatever it was that had happened on those pages.

* * *

><p>When the key card turned the light green, Castle opened the front door to their elaborate suite and stepped inside. He shut the door after him and threw the privacy lock, and then he moved back towards the bedroom.<p>

Kate was sitting on the edge of the mattress, a thin and angular knee pulled up to her chest and her chin on it, the pages in her hands, her other leg off the bed and her foot resting on the floor.

She was on what looked to be the last page, the others in a neat stack beside her hip, her eyes racing across the words.

He cleared his throat and her gaze darted up and then immediately back down again; she lifted a finger as if to beg him to wait, and then that finger hovered there and moved to her lips, caressed the bow of her mouth as if entirely without her knowledge.

Sensuous, stirring, undeniable. He wanted to touch her and he wanted to turn around and leave the room.

She sighed and lifted her eyes. "You have to write more."

"What?"

"Castle, oh, _God, _there has to be more of this. It's not over - it's only in the middle of things and what is she going to do?"

"I don't know what she does," he said honestly.

Kate's shoulders slumped but she stood up on that long, thin leg. She stood up and slid her other foot to the floor as well, and she came to him, throwing her arms around his neck.

"You have to write it, Castle. All the rest of it. Don't you dare stop."

"I - I guess I will."

"I need to know," she said, tightening her arms once before dropping back down. She sank to the mattress, her hair in a state of dishabille, if that were possible, messy and gorgeous and unfit for anyone's eyes than his own.

"You need to know?"

"It feels like it's about us," she murmured, biting her bottom lip. And then she shook her head. "But not us. Not us at all. Only - only something of us is in here. And you, something of you in him, and I want to know if he makes it. I have to know. I - have you ever read any Russian literature?"

He stood blankly, trying to follow the tied knots of the daisy chain of thought, and then he made it to the last. "Whatever was on your shelf."

"What?"

"When we lived together at the old place. Before it blew."

Her face went curiously blank and he dissected his statement to see what it had been, what had done it, but she curled a smile at him. "You read what was on my shelf?"

"Everything."

"All of it?"

"Yeah," he said, shrugging. She lifted her hand and wriggled her fingers and he took it, squeezing. She pulled him to the bed and they both sank to the mattress and he felt better for it, like he had some support now.

"Then you read Chekhov. And you read the Kate Chopin novel, oh, and the Katherine Mansfield shorts?"

"Yes," he said steadily.

"When?"

He fumbled with her hand and glanced to the pages on the bed. "Um, in between times. Whenever I had a chance. You made notes."

"I made - oh, you mean in the text?"

"Yeah. Was it a class?"

"Some of it was," she said, nodding slowly. "At Stanford, my first semester. When I thought I'd major in English and then go on to law school after that."

Before her mother's murder. "Oh, I-"

"But you read all of it? The Awakening and-"

"I read all of it," he said, insisting a little. "Why is that so hard to believe?"

"No, oh, no. It's not. I just - this feels like an unfinished novel from one of those, Rick. It feels like I've been given some never-before-been seen rare manuscript."

"I didn't steal-"

"_No_," she cried, lurching into him and wrapping her arms around his neck. He didn't understand, his mouth had a funny taste, bitter, and his eyes hurt. She was shaking her head and squeezing hard. "No, Castle, not _stolen_. It feels - real. It's not just - letters in a journal, love. It's a story I feel like I should have read before, a Chopin novel, a Chekhov piece, something real."

He lifted shaking hands to her back and held her, breathing hard. "You think it's - it's that good?"

"Oh, God," she whispered. "Rick, it's so good."

_It's so good._

He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her neck and breathed. He knew she was probably just saying that because she loved him and she was biased, but it felt really good to hear it anyway.

Her lips touched his cheek, down to his ear, and her hand came to his nape and kept him close. Her nose nudged into his jaw, her breath soft and regular.

"I love you," she murmured. "You know I do. But, Castle, sometimes it still knocks me down - just how in love with you I am."

All because of a story about an artist and his muse.

* * *

><p>A half-eaten container of gelato was melting on the luxurious carpet, but Castle was dead-asleep on her thigh. She stroked her fingers through his hair, skimming his scalp down to his neck, and she read again the pages he had for her.<p>

He must have written all night.

He had promised to write more; he couldn't do it while she watched him; he was tired. He'd fallen asleep trying to convince her that he could write best in Florence.

She wasn't convinced. She wanted to get home and now that she'd been asleep for a day, and now approaching their second night in the Hyatt Park, she wasn't going to Florence. Not even for a beautiful story. They had another story to get back to.

Oh, but he must have been so tired. To fall asleep with his lips against her knee, her leg curled up under his head like an uncomfortable pillow. She kept touching him, fingers along his back, up his neck, into the short hair. She scratched through his beard, which he would have to shave eventually but not yet; it was good cover.

Castle jerked in his sleep and his eyes flared open. His hand clutched her ankle and his grip was like iron, but she only rubbed her fingers at his earlobe until slowly, slowly, his body loosened and the tension fell away.

He released her leg and took a breath. "Sorry. Didn't mean to fall asleep on you."

"It's okay. It was nice," she murmured.

He sat up and scratched at his neck where the beard got him, rubbed his palm flat over his cheek with irritation in his eyes. She should tell him, _no, it's okay, go ahead and shave it off._ But she didn't.

"We're staying here tonight," she told him. It wasn't exactly a demand, since she had an idea that Castle wanted her stationary for a lot longer than a couple nights. "One more night's rest, and then we leave for home."

He opened his mouth to argue, she saw it in his eyes, and then they blanked and he nodded. "All right. One more night."

"And home."

"And then home," he sighed. His body dropped back to the mattress and his ear pressed against her folded up knee. He wrapped his arms around her waist and she tilted forward around him, hugging him back, shoulders and head.

"Maybe she follows him," she whispered.

"What?" he mumbled from her knee.

"She could follow him," she offered again. "I'd follow you if I thought you were sneaking around on me."

"I wouldn't-!" Castle grunted and stopped, shaking his head against her thigh so that her bare skin burned where his beard scraped. "He's not sneaking around on her."

"But she doesn't know that," Kate sighed. "And all those models."

"Models."

"The nude models."

"They're just _her_," he muttered.

"She doesn't know that." Kate leaned back against the headboard and closed her eyes to it. "She thinks he's got another muse."

"You're entirely too invested in this story, Kate. It's not real."

But it was. It was real. This woman and her jealousy, her fits of irrational temper as she tried to keep her husband; she was only stifling his art. She was making things worse, and Kate could see it, but she was outside of things, an observer. The woman had no idea; she was so very hurt, her fingers sliced to ribbons on the stretched canvases depicting other women's breasts.

But the nude models were all her, how he saw her. So much more than what she saw in herself.

"He loves her," Castle sighed. As if that ended the story.

"But-"

"No. He just loves her, Kate."

"But she-"

"No."

Kate fell silent. But what _happened_? What did she do? There was more, had to be more, and the idea that the woman couldn't see that those models were _herself_, that she couldn't look at his work and realize that she was only seeing herself through his loving, cataloging, artist's eyes was so frustrating.

It was them.

She was the one asking, _but_. She was the one insisting there was more, adding complications; the wife was _her._

"You know she loves him too," she added.

Castle grunted, half-asleep.

"She loves him too," Kate insisted, tweaking his ear. He roused and turned his head to give her a baleful, one-eyed look. "She doesn't see herself in those paintings because she never looks at herself. She looks at him. And if he's sneaking out, it just makes it worse. It makes everything feel shaky and she can't-"

"It's just a story," he sighed, but his arms tightened around her and she fell silent again.

It was just a story. It was only _one_ aspect of their story, a flat aspect - no, not flat, just one dimension of a faceted and complicated and ever-growing thing. It was a handful of fur of the beast they rode, and if she let herself analyze it to death, it would kill the beautiful parts too.

"It's a beautiful story," she whispered, bent over his ear. He hummed a little, one of her hums, one of James's same hums, must be a family thing now, and she smiled as his eyes drooped shut. "I love your story."

"I just love you," he murmured, and fell asleep again.


	9. Chapter 9

**Close Encounters 24**

* * *

><p>He was poised on the balls of his feet to move, to catch her or hold her up, something, but she turned around in the shower and tilted her head back and the water sluiced through her hair and down her skin and all that anxiety was suddenly muted and dulled by a sharp and piercing lust.<p>

"Now you," she called out over the water.

He blinked and stepped forward, switching off with her, and he wasn't paying any attention at all so the soap ran down into his eyes and stung, like divine punishment for ogling his wife.

Could a person really be punished for that? She was his _wife_, and she was breathing and standing up naked in the shower with her arms over her head as she worked conditioner into her short hair.

Was she doing that on purpose? That, that right there. Had to be on purpose.

Her eyes flicked down and back up again, smirk on her lips, and holy hell, woman, she was doing it on purpose.

Castle growled and flicked water off the ends of his fingers towards her face. She yelped and ducked, scuttling away, and he laughed. He tilted his head back to rinse the rest of the shampoo and suddenly a fat, wet washcloth smacked into his chest.

And hung there.

He glanced down at it and then back up at her, and Kate was laughing so hard she had to sink back against the tile. And then her knees dipped and she was sitting on the low ledge built - probably - exactly for that.

Well, not for a laughing wife, but for a weakened individual who might need to sit. A handicap chair or-

Well, sexy things flashed in his mind as well, and _that_ was not exactly a good idea right now as she struggled to get her giggling under control again.

Castle peeled the washcloth away from his chest and put it under the spray, getting it good and soaked, and then he turned and chucked it at her.

It made a sucking, slapping sound as it landed on her shoulder, _thwack,_ and she gasped and then laughed harder, dissolving back against the tiles, reaching for the washcloth but not quite making it, shaking with her mirth.

He grinned and kept rinsing the shampoo, ran his fingers through his hair to be sure, and then he was done. He stepped over to her, took her by the hands and hauled her upright. Their bodies collided quite nicely, warm and chilled flesh meeting, and she sucked in a breath and her eyes flared to his.

The washcloth dropped to the tile floor and plugged one of the drains, water swirling around his feet now. She was breathing hard, her body skimming his, fingers on his biceps.

He turned her into the spray and tilted her head back, easing his fingers through her hair until the conditioner made it straight and smooth and soft. Her lashes kept fluttering against little drops, against her own breathlessness, and he knew she could feel every point of contact between their bodies.

He cupped the nape of her neck tighter and lifted her back up.

She crashed her mouth down into his and wrapped her arms around him, surging hot and wet against him.

Castle shut the water off and carried her back to bed, soaking the sheets.

* * *

><p>He could shave now, she'd said.<p>

_You can shave now. That was - exactly what I hoped for_.

Unashamed, completely devilish, fingers on her lips as she smiled.

Castle shaved at the bathroom sink, chin tilted up to the mirror, shirtless - alone, thank you very much; that was how that had all _started_ for goodness sake. He had even locked the door against her.

The shaving cream was warm. The hotel concierge had sent it up - a bowl of lather, a marble bowl or a damn good fake marble, and the little brush as well. Kate's eyes had lit up and she'd headed for him, but he wasn't having it.

_Stay in bed_, he'd growled. She'd made suggestive comments even about that, but he wasn't kidding around now. She'd stayed, and here he was in the bathroom at two in the morning, shaving his beard because she didn't _need_ it anymore.

It wasn't a switchblade, which he'd done before, and it wasn't an old-fashioned flat blade, but it was a razor. And it required concentration, his full attention, and of course he was thinking about how her thighs felt under his fingers after his cheeks had rasped against her skin.

Hot. Burning hot and abraded, flushed red, blood rushing under her skin.

Fuck.

He had to close his eyes and grit his teeth to calm down.

He went back to the razor and ran it slowly over his neck, feeling his way with his fingers as he watched the path clear in the mirror. His skin was dotted with bright red spots. He always nicked his neck, never failed.

The door clicked and came open.

"I thought I told you to stay in bed."

She laughed. She was swaying only a little. Two days of sleep, two _nights_ of sleep had worked a miracle. And the infusion, no doubt.

"I really like that one, Castle. You'll have to remember it."

"Like... what?"

She lifted an eyebrow and came forward. Her fingers touched his bare back. "That little fit of bullying. Sometime when I can get you back for it, yeah?"

Get him... oh, _fuck_. Sex. She was talking about having sex and they had _just_-

"Not now, couldn't possibly. I'm tired." Another quirk of her mouth for that one; Kate never said she was too tired for sex. He felt like it was a personal victory to hear it come out of her mouth. "But I wanted to be sure you were going to wake me."

"Wake you?" Not for sex. Not for sex _again_ when he should have been-

"In the morning." She leaned in and laid her cheek to his shoulder blade, her breath sighing coolly against his skin. "We have a flight out of here at ten, right?"

"Yeah."

"And we won't miss it."

"We won't miss it."

"You promise? No _accidentally_ missing the flight home."

"No, I promise," he said softly. She was tired, he could feel it in every line of her body against his, he'd felt it in bed and tried - he had _tried_ - to go slowly, to be soft, to give her what she'd needed without setting them back. She was determined to leave tomorrow morning, and he knew she was right.

They had to go.

She wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, leaning heavily into him now. "Are you done?" she murmured. Her fingers curled and then traced around his belly button; he had to press his fist into the counter and take a breath to center himself.

"Nearly done. Go back to bed, Kate. I'll be there in a minute."

"Too tired to walk," she admitted against his back.

"Then stay right there. I'll be fast."

"Don't cut yourself," she murmured. He felt her drifting attention and then she roused and stood up straight. "No, I'm going. I'm going. I don't want to fall asleep without you."

"I'll be right in," he promised, catching her eyes in the mirror.

She smiled back at him; she looked tired, she looked so tired, but she looked happy. Happy was better than miserable and restless and yet still exhausted. Tired-happy made it seem like she'd been up all night with the baby.

Her fingers trailed at his waist as she turned to go. He watched her walk back to the bathroom door and then disappear beyond it.

He took a fortifying breath and gave up the shaving. He trimmed what he could with the razor and then he washed everything clean. Kate needed him. She wanted to fall asleep knowing he was right there.

He could do that. He was done.

Tomorrow morning they'd fly home.

* * *

><p>Castle had insisted. Kate had to admit that the moment her body sank into the seat in first class, she was grateful.<p>

First class all the way home. She was going to survive this flight without a problem. She would even be able to walk off the plane at the other end, she thought.

Kate closed her eyes and felt Castle's hand come over hers, his fingers tangling. Her body was still leaden after her difficult wake-up call this morning, like she could feel every added element to her system, weighing her down.

No chelation therapy any more, just the infusion they'd created from her son's blood. A saline drip for five hours a few days ago and she had immediately felt so much _energy_. She might have burned it off a little too fast; she might have done too much, but she'd just - she had just wanted him.

He'd written such a beautiful story and she'd been trying to say it back to him, tell him the same lovely things but she didn't have the words, she just had her body.

"Don't stop breathing, Kate."

She reflexively took in a startled breath, realized her exhale had gone on a little too long. It required so much effort to expand her lungs when she was this tired.

"I'm breathing," she said finally. When it was definitely true.

She hoped she wasn't pushing him too far. She hoped his anxiety was manageable; she hadn't meant to cross those lines. She kept asking him to be brave, but she didn't want him to _have_ to be. That was her goal. To be strong again, so he knew it, so he didn't have to be brave.

He had wanted to divert to Florence and recuperate there, but no. No, that was a bad idea for both of them. She needed to be home, but more than that, she needed Castle to be home. He was fraying apart at the edges and while it had been for good reason, she _was_ getting better. It took effort and strength of will but she had that, she had it.

She was breathing still.

"Now I know how you felt," Castle said.

She opened her eyes and turned to look at him; he was sheepish and so sad. She hated how sad he was. They both needed to go home, they needed their baby boy and normal life and a chance to catch their breath - together, collectively.

"How I felt?" she said finally.

"When I was sick." Dying. "Waiting for me to breathe."

She wished he didn't; she would never wish that feeling on him, the edge of panic and grief. She slowly flipped her hand under his and tangled their fingers again. "I'm breathing. I won't fail you."

"Oh, Kate," he husked, shaking his head. "Not failing me, sweetheart. You have been so strong."

"My fault we're here," she said finally. His eyes were the blue of grief, and she wished she could gather it up, absorb it all. She didn't want him to be sad about her; she was really fine. She was just so tired; it was exhausting to be so tired all the time. "My fault, taking two pills like-"

"It wasn't anything we could have known; we tried our best with what we knew was right." Castle gripped her hand harder. "Either of us could take blame for this, Kate. If you won't let me, then I won't let you."

She chewed on her bottom lip, struggling to keep from crying. She was just so tired all the time, she had so little endurance. She had felt so good yesterday after two days of sleep and that beautiful story; she'd thought it would be so easy now. But it wasn't. She felt nearly as bad as she had felt on chelation days.

She wanted to hold her son. She wanted to be held herself. "I just want to go home."

"I know," he said. "I know. We're going home. I'm taking you home. Please, sweetheart, don't cry."

"I'm not."

He gave her a heartbreaking look and she felt the grief cracking her open. She closed her eyes tightly and grit her teeth. Not here, not on a commercial flight in first class before the doors had even closed. She was better than this; she was just _tired_.

"Kate," he whispered.

She shook her head and tilted her chin up and gulped ragged breaths. He clutched her hand and she clutched back and she tried to hold it together.

She was just tired. That was all it was. Exhaustion was fraying them both out to ragged stubs and she needed to stop falling into grief every time the weariness got hold of her.

Think about his story. His beautiful words, the woman waiting and wondering, not able to see herself how her artist husband saw her.

How did Castle see her? His wife, his beautiful wife, the woman he needed. Too tired for her own good, but alive. Still alive; she was alive and breathing.

His father hadn't killed her; Black had actually saved her life. She still couldn't quite believe it.

His father had not only let her live, he had saved her life. He had_ saved_ her life.

Why? Why had he - there had been plenty of opportunities for him to make it look like an accident, to even just _let_ her die. All he had needed to do was let her stop breathing, just stand there and watch, and he hadn't. How did _Black_ see her? What did he see in her that made her worth the effort of saving?

They had a tenuous truce again, they'd had this moment of understanding in that apartment in Cologne, and she knew. She knew why he let her live.

Because he knew he had an ally in her, because he was going to ask - someday soon - he was going to ask for James.

He wanted their son, now that his own was so irretrievably lost to him. He wanted James on his side, seeing things his way, subverted and brainwashed by him. He'd already told her, _I hope he feels for you what my son feels for me_. Black was going to dig his claws into James and never let go.

"Kate? Kate, don't cry, honey. Oh please, don't; you're going to be fine. You're going to be just fine-"

She choked on tears and crashed forward into his arms, let herself be weak, let herself sob just once, just this once, because he was here and he still loved her and the way he saw her might change, but he never stopped looking.

* * *

><p>Castle wanted to wrap her up in his arms and hide her away, but the more he touched, the more she seemed to fall apart.<p>

He knew his grief still lingered. He knew part of this was his fault, Kate reflecting back to him what was still so close to the surface that it came up in his eyes and washed over his face. He knew that his own broken-heartedness was affecting her recovery in the same way that her physical brokenness was affecting his emotional recovery. They had to stop this before they wrecked each other.

She had been right. They absolutely had to go home. It was only there that it would finally begin to heal, their feedback loop would close, and all of this would be over.

He wanted to wrap her in cotton wool and carry her off to the panic room, the big one in the basement that would fit all of their family, but that was impractical when the threat came from within. Her own body, the toxicity from those pills.

He still felt the strain of it, of knowing he hadn't paid enough attention. He was actually _trying_ not to feel it, trying to put aside the guilt and focus instead on doing better, being better. The guilt was going to eat him alive if he let it.

The pills. They hadn't had any other choice; the moment she had stopped taking those pills, James hadn't gotten enough nutrients to _survive_. Overnight it had seemed. They had only done what had seemed right.

It hadn't occurred to him that having a lack of something also meant you could have a toxicity of it as well. When they'd talked about weaning James, the pills hadn't come up. Except for: _okay, once he's done, we'll stop_. When they had started him on solid food and the feedings had cut back to just that bottle at night, they should have adjusted the levels of her intake.

They should have _thought_ of that. Logan was killing himself in recriminations, and Castle was right there with him, but it was going to eat a hole in his relationship with his wife if he didn't stop feeling so damn guilty.

Yes, Castle should have thought of it. He would like to say he was up on the regimen, but truth was he always turned a blind eye to it. He relied on Beckett to be on top of things, but she'd been affected by the symptoms of withdrawal and the lack of nutrients, and then once she was back on them, she'd felt absolutely great.

Until her system had crashed.

That was how the pills were supposed to work. That's what they did.

It wasn't her fault she hadn't thought of it; it was his for willfully sticking his head in the sand. No more of that. He was already going back over the research from the beginning.

He glanced over at his wife. Kate had fallen asleep the second gravity had tugged at their guts and the plane had escaped the earth. She had left a damp spot against his chest that still hadn't dried, but she was curled up in her own seat against the window, her face mashed into a pillow and the blue blanket pulled up around her ears. She looked tired - she always looked tired - but a normal tired, the kind that sleep might help.

He pulled out his bag from under the seat before him, and the rustling of pages made her stir. But she stayed asleep, and he thought he would pull out the notes he'd made on the program, but instead he found himself taking out that sheaf of papers with the story written on it.

Kate had called down to the concierge and asked for a manila folder, and then she had put them neatly together inside it. She had told him, _it needs a title too_. He didn't know about titles, or even how the story ended, it was just sitting there in the middle of wounded things.

He opened the manila folder and laid his hand over the first page and for some reason, the wolf tattoo came to mind.

Artistry.

Making a mark.

These words did that too, and she loved them, and the story wasn't complete.

Castle lifted the tray from the armrest of his first class seat, and he laid the pages out on the little desk it made. He uncapped his pen and stopped thinking about the regimen.

He thought about an artist arranging his prints in the gallery and his wife at home thumbing through the nude portraits of herself, not knowing they were only of her, how he saw her now.

How he was always going to see her.

* * *

><p>The plane touched down in New York and her eyes flared open for the first time since Milan.<p>

"We're landing?" she scraped out, disbelieving.

"We've landed," he confirmed. He was close, leaning in to look out the window past her shoulder, and so she lifted her hand free of the blue blanket and scratched at his face.

She laughed, the short bristles under her fingers surprising her. "No beard," she murmured. "Just scruff."

He gave her a rueful look and rubbed his jaw. "Scruff enough. It itches."

She touched his chin and used her nails, scratching him lightly, watching his eyes slip shut. Had he slept at all? Not likely. He needed less, now that he was - she was going to stop calling it super. His hackles raised at that word now, and it held connotations that he kept trying to live up to. Super. No, he was just a man with a few enhancements. Augmented. Wasn't that what someone had called it? Who? She couldn't remember.

Her augmented man. She leaned in and softly brushed her lips against his mouth, the stubble nothing at all like the beard, but somehow more raw. She loved the profile of his face, the hard plane of his jaw, the fierce pride of his nose. He was a beautiful man.

"We're home," she murmured.

His face broke open in a smile and he kissed her back, a little touch, a slight invitation of his tongue that she followed out and down, falling into him. He held her up, their bodies touching between the first class seats, and then he let go.

Kate sat back in her own seat and held on to that feeling: landing, finally; home, finally; solid ground.

A thought came to her and her eyes popped open - just in time to see Castle's worried, troubled look. Over her. Still over her. She ignored it for the thought still swirling in her head. "Rick."

"Yeah."

"Don't shave the scruff."

"What?" he said, blinking to clear the grief from his face. Wariness replaced it. "Wait. Don't shave? No. We are not-"

"Mm, we are," she smiled. "I need an appropriate sample size to test my theory."

"What theory," he grumbled.

"You're good no matter what the sensation."

* * *

><p>She fell asleep in the passenger seat the instant they got on the road. Castle called Jim's cell phone and the man answered. "We're on our way to you," he said, keeping his voice down.<p>

"Good. She asleep?" Jim asked.

"Yeah. Tired. Going to be tired for a while."

"Funny, your little wolf has sacked out here too." Jim had a smile in his voice and Castle knew it was relief.

"You make it okay?"

"Just fine. I came the way you asked, followed your instructions. The security team was very good. They had everything ready."

He and Kate had decided they ought to be more circumspect about their travels to and from the cabin. It was guarded by Mitchell's security team round the clock, but it didn't have the presence and force of a full team. And of course, the team had gone ahead of Jim back to their home today in preparation for his and Kate's arrival.

"That's good. Feel free to eat anything in the house," Castle told him. "I don't think anything's gone bad. Maybe the milk."

"I found a yogurt. I'm good. Wolf is asleep down here with me - he didn't want to go up alone. I think he missed his momma."

"Yeah," Castle said roughly. "I bet." Three days, they'd said, maybe four. It had taken too long; it'd been nearly two weeks. It wasn't what he'd intended when they'd agreed to do this.

"All right. Drive safely, Rick. See you when you get here, son."

He ended the call, tightening his jaw against the moonlight and the way Jim so easily called him son. Even still. Even after this. Jim Beckett was a good man, a very good man, and Castle was going to work like hell to be worthy of it. He knew he'd never be able to earn it, knew he'd _never_ earn it, but he could live up to the honor. He knew that much.

Having his own son, Castle understood what was supposed to be there, how it swamped a man so fiercely. How he'd love and forgive and accept his son no matter what the kid did or would do. That's what it meant, being a father - or at least that was what it should mean.

Castle's father had saved her life. He had saved her life, like a father should. Castle was still struggling to process that fact. It had been one thing to make a deal and arrange for medical care, it had been entirely another the way Black had worked to save her life in the back of that van. In the moment, when it had absolutely and critically mattered, his father had worked with him to save Kate's life.

He didn't know what to think.

He stopped trying to think altogether, and he just drove. He drove the Range Rover they'd left in long-term parking back to their own home and he ignored the whole last twelve days; he thought only about getting Kate home.


	10. Chapter 10

**Close Encounters 24**

* * *

><p>The drive was interminable when he was worrying, but it was lightning fast the second he stopped thinking about everything. When they arrived at their block, Castle bypassed the parking garage and found a spot not far from the front door; he didn't even have to double park.<p>

Someone was looking out for them.

He turned off the ignition and got out of the Rover, moved around the hood to reach the passenger door. He opened it carefully but she'd fallen asleep against the strap of the seat belt and the side of the contoured seat, so it was holding her up. She looked young, even so exhausted, like maybe she was finally getting some rest when she slept.

"Kate, honey," he murmured. He closed his hand around her knee and leaned in to brush his kiss to her cheek. "Kate, we're home."

She stirred and her lashes fluttered like a kiss against his skin. She opened her eyes and smiled at him. "Home. Where's my baby?"

"Inside," he smiled back. "Want me to carry you?"

"Hell, no, Rick Castle. I can walk."

She could, but he still wanted to carry her.

Kate released the seatbelt and slowly slid her legs to the pavement, stood on both feet with only a slight sway. She clutched his arm to keep her upright, and then she moved from the passenger's side of the car to the sidewalk, finally letting him go.

Castle gave it to her, the space and dignity, and he shut the door of the Rover and stepped in at her side. He left the bag in the car, not even caring that he'd have to go back for it, and he took her hand in his as a pretense for holding her up. She seemed not to need the support though, and the way her fingers danced against the back of his hand was sweet, something so charming about it that it made his chest fill.

She was smiling; her lips were spread so wide that she seemed to drink in the moonlight on the street, radiant as the goddess. She came in closer and laid her head on his shoulder as they walked, clasped his hand in both of hers for a moment. She looked ready to shake off her old self, ready to run free.

Well, maybe not run.

Almost home, almost there. It was in every line of her body, that straining for home.

As they got closer to the front steps, he disarmed the alarm and unlocked the door remotely from his phone. He could hear the locks disengaging from the front stoop. Kate gripped his bicep as she took the steps, and then she pushed open the door herself.

Her father was standing in the entryway; evidently he'd heard the alarm going off and had come to meet them. He was holding James against his chest and the boy was awake, so very wide awake. His eyes were as bright and radiant as Kate's, silver as the moon as he stared at them.

Kate stopped just inside the foyer. "James."

Their six month old threw out his arms and grinned crazily at Kate, kicking his legs and lunging, babbling for her. Kate came straight to James and scooped him out of her father's arms, cuddling him against her chest, pressing kisses to his neck and cheeks and head.

"Hey, there, oh-" she laughed as his hand caught her mouth. "Hey, hey, little wolf. Oh, baby, we missed you so much. So much."

Castle shut the door after them and watched Kate, the way she handled their son, the reserves of strength she was calling up for him, for his moment. She had her forehead against James's, the boy was palming her cheeks and babbling words he seemed to think were so important, and Kate was talking back, humming with every reassurance, nudging in to kiss another cheek, whisper again in his ear.

"He do okay?" Castle asked her father quietly, standing back even as his chest ached.

Jim set his jaw and turned back to look at him with a sigh. "A week was too much. Two weeks was..."

Castle winced, rubbed his hand over his irritated jawline. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Us too."

"He's been crying himself to sleep these last few days," Jim said then.

"Oh, God."

"He was fine during the day. At night, he'd just stay up and stay up, and I couldn't get him to go down - like he was looking for you - and then he was past exhausted and he couldn't find sleep."

Castle nodded, his throat thick. Looking for them.

"But kids cry," Jim added. "Kids get in weird spells. Kate, when she was nearly two, she cried every morning when we came to wake her up for preschool. No reason for it. Just big fat tears. We felt like the worst parents."

Castle let out a shaky breath. "Yeah," he said, nodding even though it didn't seem okay at all. Worst parents was right.

"He'll be fine. Look at him. He's got you both and he's - ah, he's got his hands tangled in her hair. That's cute."

Castle watched his son twirl his fingers in Kate's hair, so short now that his twirling putting him right up against the back of her head, but Kate didn't even try to untangle him. It brought their faces close together too, and she was kissing his cheeks and laughing with him.

"Kate. Why don't you sit?"

"I think that's a command," she murmured to James. "Not a question, was it? Yeah, think so. Let's sit down, baby. Give Daddy a break."

Castle watched her sink into the couch and pull her knees up to her chest to rest James against them. She curled around the baby, kissing his cheeks and talking to him, and it finally felt okay again.

She was going to be okay. James was going to be okay.

No more crying himself to sleep. Even if it meant he slept with them for the next few nights.

* * *

><p>Sasha had been waiting so patiently, but now she made herself known, knocking her whole body into Castle as he and Jim still stood in the foyer. Castle let out a breath and glanced down, saw their dog nosing her head up, seeking his hand.<p>

She had never - not once - pushed into his hand to be petted like this.

"Sasha," he croaked, dropping to a crouch and rubbing her down. The dog shivered and sidled closer, nearly pushing him over. "What's up with you, puppy? We've been gone from you longer than this. Huh?"

"She - uh - she seemed to feed off the baby," Jim said thickly. "It's been pretty sad in our house the last few days. We should have come to your place sooner. At least Sasha felt at home here."

Shit.

Castle dropped his head to look in Sasha's eyes, cupping her behind the ears and giving her a good, thorough rub. "Oh, Sasha, you love the woods, and the cabin. What happened? You gotta keep the home fires burning, pup. Be James's company." His packmate. Wasn't like James was _ever_ getting a little brother or sister, not after all this. Hell. No.

Sasha whined and nosed deeper into him, her body circling in the small space made by Castle's spread knees. She turned again, licked his fingers as she circled, and Castle gave in and wrapped both arms around her, hugging her tightly.

Sasha wriggled like a dog, a little yelp of happiness in her throat. From the couch, he heard James make the same yelp, and Kate laughing at them, and so Castle just shook his head at the dog.

"You know you're losing cool points left and right, Sash," he muttered. "Where's the wolf?"

Sasha woofed low and bounded out of his arms, headed straight for the couch and Kate, like she had to move on to the next person who'd been missing from her pack.

"Oh, there's our puppy," Kate murmured from the couch. "Come on up, come on. We'll make room. Castle, help."

Jim reached out a hand and pulled Castle up to his feet, chuckling at Kate's imperious command. They both moved into the living room and Castle went to the couch where Kate was cradling a now-exhausted boy.

"He tired?" Castle murmured. It was late; he should have been in bed hours ago.

"So tired. Aren't you, baby?" she hummed. One of her arms was wrapped around James but she had her hand on top of Sasha's back, rubbing absently as the dog stood guard, muzzle on the cushions, watching them both.

"You want up with Kate?" Castle said to the dog. "Sasha. Jump. Come on."

"She won't," Kate said. "Too well trained. You gotta lift her."

"Can you scoot?"

Kate closed one eye and gave him a look; he sighed and shook his head, leaned over her to slide his arms under her knees. He put his shoulder into it and got her pushed to one end, and then he got down and scooped up the dog, deposited her on the couch too.

Sasha whined and looked between them, tail waving slowly, awkwardly stepping - gingerly now - over Kate's feet and right up at her side. There was only a narrow strip of cushion left but Sasha settled her head on her front paws, and Kate waved Castle off when he tried to move her.

"All right, fine," he said. "James okay?"

The baby twisted his head to look at him, big goofy smile beaming across his face. Castle laughed and leaned over him, brushed his mouth to the boy's forehead. He smoothed down that dark hair and James's hand caught Castle's ear, twisting.

"Hey, hey, ouch," he laughed, loosening the fist. He kissed those little fingers and tapped James's nose. "When Mom's had her fill, then it's my turn."

"Oh," Kate gasped. "No, Castle, I'm-"

"Stay," he insisted quietly, catching her earnest gaze. "Stay just like this, Kate. Ease my heart."

She bit her bottom lip, but Castle just rested a hand on top of the dog, rubbed her behind the ears before he stood again.

Jim was watching him from the doorway to the kitchen and the man put his hands on his hips. "So. It's late. You guys want dinner?"

Castle sighed, rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, I'll-"

"No. You stay, son." Jim nodded towards the couch. "I got this. You get them."

* * *

><p>For the baby, they thawed a bottle on the counter and then warmed it up while her dad finished making them spaghetti. Castle handed it to her and she tried to offer him the baby, but he shook his head.<p>

"All you. I'll just watch."

He was breaking her heart with those looks. "You'll watch over here," she dictated, nodding to the couch. "Sit with me."

She hadn't moved from this spot herself, and neither had James. He wasn't a clingy kid, but he wasn't the kind that had to be busy all the time, so it wasn't unheard of for him to be content in their arms for a few hours, especially at night.

She leaned forward, squishing James only a little, and Castle came to the corner of the couch and sat behind them. She wormed her way back into his arms, James grabbing for the bottle eagerly, and when they were settled, it was Castle's arms that came around their son and held him up.

Kate held the bottle even though James could take it for himself. He just gazed up at her for the longest time, sucking eagerly at first and then slower as he got into a rhythm, one hand hanging on to her wrist, the other wrapped around her thumb. He was usually trying to take the bottle out of her hands these days, but not tonight.

Tonight he watched her.

Castle's chin came to the top of her shoulder and he sighed. "We're home."

James's eyes darted between them, blinking hard. His foot kicked out and nudged Castle's arm, as if in encouragement. Kate could feel Castle smiling, and she tapped her cheek against his even as he reached a hand for James.

The baby let go of her and waved an arm before catching Castle's wrist. Rick quickly flipped his hand to curl around the baby's, and the boy grinned around his bottle, milk forming in the corners of his smile.

"Drink up, baby," Kate said. "Don't waste it - not getting any more than what we've got frozen."

James had no idea what she was saying, only that she was talking to him, and he gurgled up at her, spitting milk. Castle laughed at her shoulder and startled James; the baby dropped right off the bottle and stared, and then he laughed back.

"Hey, now," Castle chuckled. "Calm down, son. You're drooling milk all over us and the couch both."

"Oh, the couch," Kate sighed. "It's already stained and ugly, isn't it, baby? Tell him it doesn't even matter."

James blinked up at them, but he released Castle and Kate both, clamping his hands on the bottle. She rubbed his lips with the nipple and he sucked it into his mouth, working furiously now.

"There you go," Castle whispered. From behind her, he finally reached out and stroked his hand over James's head, laying his hair down. James's eyes drooped at the movement, popped back open when Castle's hand passed over him. He struggled with the bottle, getting it in his gums and chewing, and then he went back to sucking, watching Castle now.

Kate barely moved, tried not to ruin the moment.

Castle skimmed his fingers over the boy's forehead and down his temple, along his cheek. James only stared, remembering in spurts to feed again, and then stopping to stare. He'd missed his daddy too, not just her; it was Castle who usually came and got him out of bed in the morning so Kate could shower, Castle who fed him breakfast.

All those routines disrupted, all the mornings his daddy hadn't come to get him, all the nights he had wanted to be rocked and held and look up and see his parents.

"You okay?" Castle murmured.

"I'm fine, fine," she whispered. She was fine; she was home. Everything would be fine.

"Hey, guys. Dinner's ready," Jim called.

She lifted her head and her father was standing in the doorway with an indulgent, satisfied smile. He came towards them and leaned down to see James. The baby reached out a hand to him and opened and closed his fist, fingers in Jim's face.

Jim turned and kissed those fingers, then leaned in and brushed a kiss to Kate's cheek. "You look better, sweetheart. You think you can eat?"

"Of course," she murmured, smiling at him as he stood. "I'm even hungry. Castle?"

"Yeah, me too," he said behind her.

She chuckled and glanced over her shoulder at him. "Yeah, babe. But I meant - take the baby, will ya?"

He huffed and cupped the side of her face, kissed her cheek roughly. "All right, I got it. Here, give him to me. James, you're coming with me, son. Sorry to take you from such a beautiful sight."

James didn't even bat an eye at being shifted, and Kate finally stood with her father's help.

Once in the kitchen, Castle put the bottle in the sink and cradled James against him, but the baby wasn't interested in falling asleep any more. Castle had to turn him around so he could see, and he followed their movements as they dished out spaghetti, even lunged for Castle's meatball.

"Hey, how about giving him some noodles?" she said, nodding to the strainer.

Castle pulled one out and looped it over James's little fist. The baby squealed and jerked his hand and the noodle slid right off and to the floor.

"On a _plate_, Castle," she muttered, rolling her eyes at him. She took her own plate to the table and sank down to her usual spot. Her father brought her a glass of tea and the fresh parmesan he'd grated, and she smiled up at him. "Thanks, Dad."

"Yup. It's just spaghetti from a can, but it's the same kind your mom and I always made you."

"Mm," she hummed, taking her first bite of meatball. He always used to make those for her too, roll out big chunks of ground round for her in the sauce.

"Oh, this is good," Castle said from her right. She glanced up and saw that James had been put in his high chair and had a trayful of spaghetti noodles. He kept poking a finger into the pile and dragging them along the plastic. It worked.

"It is good," she said, smiling. "Dad always made me spaghetti whenever I came home from camp or after some trip. Even when - after Mom died." She glanced at her father; he was only smiling softly. "When exams were over each semester, you made me spaghetti."

"Tradition," he said gruffly. "And easy to make."

"Tasty tradition," Castle said with a nod. He glanced over at the baby. "And looks like James is getting a good initiation."

Kate looked over as well and saw that James had mushed a noodle against his face - close, but not quite getting it in his mouth. It was also in his hair, his ear - how had he gotten it everywhere so fast?

James saw her watching him and cast her a shy, beaming smile, ducking his head and practically batting his lashes. Kate laughed and reached out, nudged a noodle away from James's ear.

"Oh, baby. You're adorable, you know?"

Castle chuckled. "Oh, he knows."

* * *

><p>Kate curled against the couch with James fighting sleep in her arms; he looked almost as exhausted as she felt. Poor baby, it was late and he had always liked to stay up late with them. She wondered now just how much sleep he'd gotten; she had heard Castle tell her father, <em>Don't tell Kate<em>.

"You okay?" she whispered to James, nudging his cheek with her nose. She pretended to eat his ear and he giggled, that over-tired sound that still made her happy. His fist curled in her short hair and tugged, and she had to patiently unwind his fingers. "I don't know how you manage to get tangled when my hair's barely to my shoulders. Magic. Huh, baby? Is it magic?"

James gave her that shy smile, lashes dusting his cheeks as he fought sleep. She rubbed his belly and lifted away from his hand, brought him to her chest instead.

"You're okay now, aren't you?" she murmured, cupping the back of his head, stroking through the hair at his nape just like she did to Castle. "You'll sleep for me, get good sleep so I can too."

He wasn't much of a talker, but he liked to snuggle with her. His body wormed down closer and she had to use the back of the couch to prop him up, her arms trembling with fatigue. She didn't have the endurance to even hold him.

Two weeks was too long. "Too long," she murmured to him. "Wasn't it? It's late for you, little wolf. You and me both - we'll sleep so good tonight."

"Kate?"

She lifted her head and winced when James caught another fistful of her hair, fingers already twirling in it. But Castle was right there to gently pry up the baby's grip. He sank down to the couch at her hip.

"I'm okay," she promised. "Really tired, but so is he. Dad, has he been sleeping?"

Her father had just walked out of the kitchen and now his eyes shifted away. Kate frowned between the two men, Castle hesitant at her side, her father unwilling to speak. They were still looking at her like she was the most important thing in the room, but she really wished they would stop. She was tired of being the source of all the anguish.

James's turn now. He was the one they needed to be focused on.

"Dad-"

James babbled, rubbing his face into her shirt. She glanced down at him and cupped the back of his head. He mewled and tried words again. "Muh-muh." A whimper in the sound and he was clearly looking right at her.

"Was that for me?" she murmured, kissing his forehead. He had Dada - or he'd had the sounds before they'd left. Neither of them were sure he knew it as a name to call his daddy with, since he'd been saying it for both of them. "Are you talking, Jay?"

But James gave a short cry and huddled pitifully against her chest.

"Okay, bedtime," Castle declared. He reached down to take James from her and the boy sighed and clung to Castle now. His little fists had a death grip on Castle's shirt but his eyes were on her, pleading.

She shifted her feet to the floor and stood as well, one hand coming out to circle the boy's ankle. "I'll come say good-night, James. Go with Daddy."

His eyes were on her even as Castle carried him towards the stairs. When they had disappeared, Kate moved towards Jim and hugged him, both arms tight around her father. He grunted and hugged her fiercely back, a shaky sigh in his throat.

She gripped him tighter, pulled back a little to see his face. "Thank you, Daddy."

"You okay now?" He lifted a hand and put it on top of her head, like he'd done to her as a very small child. It made her go still, surprised, touched. "Everything in working order?"

She gave him a smile for the attempted joke, the gruffness. "Yeah. Yeah, I think we've got it figured out. Kind of a balancing act," she admitted. "Thank you. James - thank you. I don't know that..."

"Rick told me that his father saved your life."

She clutched her father harder for a moment before letting him go. She glanced towards the stairs but Castle was definitely gone.

"He did," she said finally. "As... bewildering as that is, he did. You know neither of us wanted to go to that meeting; we dragged our feet and tried to put him off about it. But if we hadn't been there, with him, then I don't know that I'd be alive."

Jim took a shallow breath and nodded, rubbed a hand down his face as he stepped back to the couch. But he didn't sit, he just stood there. She waited on him, knowing he had more to say, more he needed. She was so tired and her baby wanted to see her before he fell asleep, but she waited.

"Two weeks is too long," Jim said finally.

It was the only indictment she'd get from him, and she would gladly take it. It was true - two weeks was too long.

"It won't happen again," she promised.

Even if they had to go out of the country, she'd get them back here, hell or high water. They weren't able to recover or process without the safe confines of their own home, having all the pieces back together again. James made it impossible to feel whole without him in sight; he was Castle's son, he was her son, they needed him.

Two weeks was too long.

"Do you want to stay the night?" she asked her father. "James's room has a bed or you could-"

"No, no, I won't stay. James needs you and not me right now."

She bit her lip. James needed _her_ to come get him when he cried in the middle of the night, not her father. James had wanted her, wanted Castle, and they hadn't been here. Had James woken up often? Had it been too much?

Her father wasn't exactly old, but he wasn't as young as he used to be. Maybe he-

"No, Kate, don't look at me like that. I'm blessed to have him so much, really I am. That you're confident he's safe with me. But now you should have privacy, be a family together after all this. Katie, you need to rest, you hear me? Rest. Don't do too much. Let Rick do for you."

He wrapped his arms around her again and she got a kiss to the cheek, the gruff clearing of his throat. He had always been a solitary, self-contained man; she remembered her mother rolling her eyes at her father's ways. Two weeks was too long for all of them.

"I'll let Castle-" she started.

"You let him baby you too," he choked out. "Like you're doing to James. Don't think that man doesn't want to coddle you."

"He better not coddle me," she grumbled.

"You need to let him," her father said again, squeezing her harder now, clinging to _her_. She had nearly died; she knew it, but she just - it just didn't register sometimes what it did to people.

"Okay," she said finally. "I'll let him. I'll let him."

"Good." Another hard squeeze before he let her go. "Good. You do that. Makes for a stronger marriage."

"What?" she startled, laughing.

"Sometimes a guy needs to feel strong. Especially when he thinks he's failed."

"He didn't fail," she gasped.

"No, but you try telling Rick that."

She stared at her father, mouth open, and then she launched herself back into his arms, strangling him around the neck in her strange flare of grief and joy.

"Love you, Dad," she laughed against his ear. "Thank you for loving my husband, loving my son."

"Of course," he gruffed. "Course. He's - the best part of my day. Your son, I mean. I'm sure Rick is just fine too."

She pulled back to share a laugh with him, and he narrowed eyes that were suspiciously bright.

Jim's gaze went towards the stairs. "I'll leave now."

"Do you want to say goodnight?" she whispered.

He shook his head. "No. Not - no. I've said - what needed said. You give James a kiss for me and I'll see you all this weekend. And tomorrow?"

"No, we're not going into work," she winced. "We can't. It's - we were listed as MIA, officially, when we failed to report in last week."

"Holy shit," her father blurted out.

Kate shook her head. "Our clearances - that's all. We don't have keys to the building, Dad. Castle will call the Director personally tomorrow, once we get in touch with Reynolds. It's fine. It'll be fine."

"Let me know when you need daycare," he said, giving her a smile. And then he was kissing her cheek again and heading for the door, and that was it.

Kate was alone downstairs, and she needed to be up there - saying goodnight to her little boy.

* * *

><p>When she made it upstairs - and it took her a while, it took her <em>time<em> to navigate each step and get her breath - Castle was standing perfectly still before the wide window, humming to his son in his arms.

James wasn't asleep. He was fighting it. Kate shifted in the doorway and came inside, and Castle turned and saw her there, his face relaxing. "Hey."

"Hey," she murmured back, nodding her head to the baby. "He's still fighting it?"

"Still fighting it," he whispered.

"You told my dad not to tell me," she said. A question, it was still a question. "Not to tell me how bad it got with him. Didn't you?"

He nodded but his hand came up and cradled James's head. The baby rubbed his face tiredly against Castle's chest, but the movement turned his head to her and he sighed, hand stretching out for her.

James had missed them. Six months old and _two weeks is too long_.

"Has he cried for us?" she said, exhaustion pouring through her. She swayed and came to Castle, burying her face next to her son. "He cried for us." James leaned for her and got an open-mouthed kind of kiss against her nose. "Are you going to sleep for us, baby? You need to sleep, James. Please, sleep."

"Kate."

She couldn't even lift her arms to take her son; she was too tired to do much more than lean against her husband and hope she wouldn't fall down.

Castle untangled an arm from James and wrapped it around her shoulders, hugging her tightly. "Kate, we had no choice."

"I know."

"It was only at night. Jim said he stayed up with him, held him. He was only sad at night."

James had _never_ needed to be rocked before, not even as a newborn. He always dropped right to sleep and woke up happy. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had to convince him to sleep when he was this tired.

"Kate, it's fine. He'll never remember it. Kids cry."

"I want to go to bed," she said into his shirt. "All of us."

"All of us," he echoed.

She lifted her head from his chest and kissed James's cheek, then his little hand as he tried to grab her hair, like he was trying to keep her. "We can have him with us in bed for a little while? You'll have to get up and put him back, but-"

"I won't make him go back," he said quietly. "We can keep him between us."

"I don't want to roll over on-"

"You won't," he said shortly. "I'll stay up. He should wake up and see you."

_See us_. James was still clinging tightly to Castle's shirt, had gone to his father from Kate's arms without even a backward glance. James needed both his parents.

"I need to sit down," she said, sinking to the gliding chair in James's room. Castle caught her by the arm and helped keep her from hitting too hard, but she was okay. "Just tired."

"If you can take him, I can take you both," Castle said, bending over her. "Carry you in to bed."

She caught his eyes and then had to laugh. "You are not serious."

"I am."

He was serious.

"Castle-" she started, sighing, elbows on her knees. She felt so tired. God, so tired, and James was whining pitifully as if in sympathy, _me too, mommy, me too_. "Castle, don't be ridiculous."

"God damn it, Kate," he growled.

She jerked upright, staring at him, and the baby, strangely, had gone very very still.

"Rick."

"You _died_. Your heart stopped," he snapped. "Don't sigh at me like you're just fucking tired. You're not just tired, and you need to rest - you need to stay in bed for at least another week-"

"Week!"

He pinned a dark look on her that had her remembering, suddenly, that black wolf tattooed on his chest. His beard and the dark shadows in the room gave a fierce contrast to the shocking blue of his eyes.

"A week," she swallowed.

"At least. At fucking least. And I don't want him in his room alone, either, so that's settled - he's with us, and you stay in bed, and the whole medical team comes in tomorrow to run tests."

"Tests," she echoed, hopes crashing.

"Don't look at me like that. You were dying - you could still be dying for all I know. You-"

"Stop," she choked out. "Stop. You're scaring him." _Me._

Castle cupped his hand around James's ear like that helped things at all. "Well, I'm fucking scared. And he should be too. You nearly didn't make it back to us. You almost _died_, Kate, and you can't keep pretending like now we're home everything's fine. It's not fine. It's not - I'm not... we're not fine." He sucked in a ragged breath and dipped his head to James, lips brushing the top of the boy's head. "I know, I know, I'm sorry. Don't cry."

He'd made her baby cry. _He_ was crying. They were both crying, silent fat tears.

"Rick." She pressed her hands into her eyes and held them up to him. "Rick, give me my son and come - come pick me up."

Castle shuffled forward, obedient, hang-dog, his eyes not meeting hers. He laid James against her chest, and she cradled the back of the boy's head, but she kept her gaze on her husband. He stood awkwardly for a second, but then he moved to get his arms around her.

She stayed still, didn't try to resist, and he picked her up easily. "Whoa," she murmured.

The baby stirred, struggling against her, reacting to the sudden change in height.

"James," she hushed, brushing her fingers at his ear. It was - effort to hold onto him. She was that exhausted. "James, need you to be good and still. Stay still, baby. Daddy's got us. Strong Daddy."

Castle huffed, but he sounded better. His burst of anger was gone, though he still held her fiercely, not gentle. In her arms, tucked into the vee made of her chest and thighs, James huddled close, stayed quietly against her, seemed to be watching their progress down the hallway. At their bedroom, the door was open wide, the bed unmade just as they'd left it.

Castle brought her to the bed and lowered her down, a hand coming up to help steady the baby. She laid back against the pillow, letting exhaustion weigh her down.

James followed, lying on her chest, but Castle tutted softly and moved him off. "You can sleep on me, son. Not on top of mom. Not for a while."

She bit her bottom lip but she didn't contradict him; she watched him pull his shirt off and then his jeans, pile everything on the floor. James watched him too, from the spot at her hip, his head tilted back to see his father.

Castle leaned in and tugged on Kate's pant leg. "Want these off?"

"Yeah," she said, moving her hand to pop the button and unzip them, then lifting her hips.

He scowled at her and she stopped trying to help.

"I guess you're not going into the Office any time soon either?" she murmured.

He glared at her.

She chewed the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. "And what... we're going to have a big slumber party in bed all day?"

Castle's gaze flicked up to her face and he yanked hard on her jeans and brought them down her legs. She moved to kick them off and his fingers wrapped around her ankle and caught her. "I'll use the handcuffs, Kate Rodgers. Don't think I won't."

"Don't tempt me," she husked.

James rolled forward flat on his face, ruining that little moment as he startled himself. Kate choked on a laugh, tried to hold it back; it wasn't funny. Neither of her guys thought this was funny. James rolled onto his back and stared at them, an injured expression on his face.

"Oh," she laughed, gasping. "Baby, that's - you're so tired, you fell asleep sitting up. Jay-Jay, come here, honey. Come here, Rick. You too. All of us."

"Your shirt-"

"It's a t-shirt, I can sleep in it. Come here." She tugged on James's foot, gestured to Castle.

James let out a disgruntled noise, but Castle put his knee on the mattress and leaned in, scooped the baby up as he came. He settled hard right beside her, and James was on his chest, patting awkwardly at the inked wolf.

"He sees your tattoo," she murmured, turning into them, resting her cheek against Castle's shoulder. She felt it now, so tired it was bone deep - not the good tired, either. The bad, forgetting to breathe tired. James, at least, was on his father's side, not where she might roll onto him.

"You like it, kiddo?" Castle kissed the top of James's head, but his free hand came up into her hair, stroked. His next kiss came to her forehead, pressed hard in apology. "Kate. I just-"

"We're all tired," she murmured. "We're all traumatized. All of us. I don't want to traumatize you further."

"Please don't." _Please keep breathing._

She would. She would be good, even slumber party for a week, even... even if he wanted her in this bed a month, she would - she would try. Kate reached across Castle's chest and laid her hand on top of Castle's at James's back. "Sleep, baby."

"Me or him?"

"Both," she sighed, turning her lips to kiss his bare skin. James had settled down now too, eye-to-eye with the wolf. He seemed to be petting it, fingers patting Castle's skin even as his eyes dipped to sleep.

It was going to take some time, but they were going to be fine. They'd bounce back, they could recover. Just time.

"Sleep, Kate. I got you. You need to sleep too."

"I am," she mumbled, and at the last, she felt Castle's fingers at her neck, twisting in her hair, just like James.

* * *

><p>the end of <strong>Close Encounters 24: Moonraker<strong>

stay tuned for **Close Encounters 25: Role of Honor**


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